Vine-Leaf Trees Depicting Non-Branching

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Contents:

Brinckmann, Mushroom Trees, & Asymmetrical Branching
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2020/12/11/brinckmann-mushroom-trees-asymmetrical-branching/

Grape Leaf Depictions in Greek & Christian Art

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=grape+leaves+greek+myth

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=ivy+greek+myth

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=mushroom+%22christian+art%22

todo: add image search links, & direct image remote-hosted links. Add only 1 image inline. here. Conserve, monitor, strategically control image storage space, a limited design resource. Analyze image storage usage; monitor usage; allocate the resource efficiently. Reuse existing images from adding from the media library. 22% used.

Folio 15 – Devil

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10551125c/f15.item.zoom
The mushroom tree on the right is a hybrid vine-leaf + mushroom-cap tree, strengthening the Psalter’s art-theme of pairing of vine-leaf trees with mushroom trees. This is a stylized grapevine leaf, more than an ivy-vine leaf. The mushroom reveals the illusory nature of possibilities branching, with ego steering with power through the possibility-branching tree to create the future. {Vine leaf} represents {vine}, which represents non-branching, which is revealed by mushrooms.

Folio 107 Detail

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10551125c/f107.item.zoom
hi-res
3-part leaves, venturing into mushroom shape (stem, left side of cap, right side of cap)
ivy leaves in Greek art. thyrssus with no pine cone.

Grape Leaf Photos

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=grape+leaves

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=grape+vine

Grape leaves vary a lot. Some are tripart. How to abstractly represent such variation? Jaggy 3-part leaves; that matches the stylized vine-leaf trees, except where there are 3 emphatically separated narrow leaves as a trio.

Snakes, Serpents, Ketos, Dragons, Drakones; and Vine Leaves

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=snake+ivy

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=snake+vine

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=snake+grape

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=serpent+ivy

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=serpent+vine

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is dd17c396067275518dd3ee20afb273e0.jpg
grape vine leaves. thyrssus with leaf-cone hybrid of ivy leaves & pine cone.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-49ic0ExRhZI/WRX6xhLFFEI/AAAAAAAAHW0/t6sryVDv9-0M-LpD1Fx-CIjqsrg9SML1gCLcB/s1600/4-garden-of-hesperides.jpg
possibly stylized grape leaves in greek art
https://egodeaththeory.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/483fb-k12.18dionysos.jpg
grape leaves on left, ivy leaves on right

Ivy Leaf Depictions in Greek & Christian Art

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=ivy+greek+art

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=ivy+greek+myth

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=vine+greek+myth

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=grape+vine+greek+myth

Samorini Figure 12

upper left tree has ivy leaves.
Brinckmann, Mushroom Trees, & Asymmetrical Branching
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2020/12/11/brinckmann-mushroom-trees-asymmetrical-branching/#Plate-8
Plate 8
Plate 8
https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_8AgwAAAAYAAJ/page/n77/mode/2up
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5e/fd/9a/5efd9af0ccbc7726029646f6a558df4d.jpg
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/268667933996820604/
3-part grape vine leaves
grape vine leaves, not differentiated from ivy vine leaves

Ivy Leaf Photos

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedera
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/Hedera_helix_Leaves_3008px.jpg

Vine-Leaf Trees as a Companion to Mushroom Trees, = Non-Branching Revealed by Psilocybe

Plate 8

Brinckmann’s book, Plate 8
ivy-vine leaves in proximity with mushroom caps
My WordPress page:
Brinckmann, Mushroom Trees, & Asymmetrical Branching
Book at archive.org:
https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_8AgwAAAAYAAJ/page/n77/mode/2up

New Hypothesis-Construct: “Vine-Leaf Trees”, as a Companion to “Mushroom Trees”, = non-branching revealed by Psilocybe

[11:45 a.m. December 20, 2020]

How unrealistic the depicted vine-leaves are, is the same as how unrealistic (ie stylized) the mushroom stems & caps are.

  • Stylized mushroom-like trees.
  • Stylized ivy-leaf/ grape-leaf /vine-leaf-like trees. ‘vine leaves’ is Brinckmann’s term, nicely broad, including both ivy and grape leaves, as depicted by Greek images & photographs. Like I have a gallery page at ego death .com side by side muhroms and phtos mushrom art, mushroom photos, and Italian Pine photos. Similarly I need a WordPress page side-by-side:
  • Grape leaf photos
  • Grape leaf depictions in Greek & Christian art
  • Ivy leaf photos
  • Ivy leaf depictions in Greek & Christian art (including “dud mushroom trees”). Vine-Leaf Trees Depicting Non-Branching

Until I have reason not to, I’m tentatively categorizing the dud non-mushroom trees as “vine-leaf trees” per Brinckmann.

I cannot tell what his view is there, because only 1.25 chapters of 5 are translated to English.

I will try one more time to see if his german text at ‘vine’ points to a Plate Diagram image so I can see what shapes he means by ‘vine leaves’.

Brinckmann Identifies the Non-Sphere Trees, Non-Mushroom trees, to Be Vine Leaf Trees, = Non-Branching

update [12:33 p.m. December 20, 2020] —

image searches are inconclusive, neither confirming nor disconfirming, but I can conclude that it won’t be easy to disprove my hypothesis that the dud mushroom trees are — as Brinckmann seems to be saying — “vine-leaf trees“. I’m not getting definitive confirmation, I’m not getting definitive dis-confirmation. I’m spoiled, normally I get definitive confirmation.

This situation is what separates the theory-construction men from the boys. Are you able to continue developing a new explanatory framework while not having immediate confirmation; INVESTMENT IN a likely promising new explanatory framework.

To be a leading-edge winning investor, ahead of the curve, you have to be willing to invest in the new explanatory framework.

People who are never willing to invest in a not-fully-proved new explanatory framework, cannot ever be leading-edge. They are laggards, retarded by skepticism.

next todo: check German pages of the English translation, at “vine leaf” (4 hits), to see if he points to a Plate Diagram illustration to show what shape he means by “vine leaf”.

_____

[December 19, 2020]

Today, reading translated portions of Brinckmann’s book, he frequently talks of vine leaves coming out of an oak trunk. He sees it as stripped-down.

What he’s saying could be highly significant for the Egodeath theory — the Mytheme theory.

If we consider the “dud mushroom trees”, that are styled like mushroom trees except they have 3-part vine leaves instead of a sphere atop the stems, this is almost as helpful for the Egodeath theory (the Mytheme theory portion) as mushroom trees, and complements mushroom trees nicely, reinforcing the theme of “non-branching”.

Folio 92 – Does Brinckmann Consider These to Be “Vine Leaves”? Vine = Non-Branching
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10551125c/f92.item.zoom

Folio 98 – Vine Leaf Tree Detail

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10551125c/f98.item.zoom

Would Brinckmann say the leaves of the Pink Key Tree are “vine leaves”? {vine} is a major mytheme in the Mytheme theory, equivalent to {snake}, meaning non-branching; ie eternalism.

[12:12 p.m. December 20, 2020] Compare images of Thyrssus open-scaled pine cones with ivy leaves. I posted about that maybe 2011, you take the linear ivy leaves, per ancient Loose Cognitive Science, each leaf is a snapshot of your control-thoughts arrayed along your pre-existing worldline, then arrange them per pre-existence per gnosticism, all together at once, in an open-scaled pine cone on the thyrssus. thyrssus ivy leaves https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=thyrssus+ivy+leaves – a couple hits.
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=thyrssus
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=dionysus+ivy
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=grape+leaf

http://www.greatdreams.com/blog/dionysus.jpg
http://www.greatdreams.com/blog/dee-blog93.html
3-part grape leaves
thyrssus with ivy vine leaves, no pine cone shown. ivy vine leaf crown.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/dd/17/c3/dd17c396067275518dd3ee20afb273e0.jpg
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/519954719472896136/
http://afewshotstoshaman.blogspot.com/2009/01/heart-of-matter_15.html
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_DeutwC_pLZ0/SW9DyouGBtI/AAAAAAAAAt0/miJk0Jfu–o/s1600-h/IB-Dionysus+Kleophrades.jpg
http://ii.designtoscano.com/fcgi-bin/iipsrv.fcgi?FIF=/images/toscano/source/KY4054_1.tif&cvt=jpeg
https://egodeaththeory.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/e6b0c-thyrsus.1992.11.0054.jpg
http://afewshotstoshaman.blogspot.com/2009/01/heart-of-matter_15.html
thyrssus with big ivy vine leaves
dup.
Maenad-with-thyrsus-stuffed-with-ivy-leaves-holding-a-leopard-and-wearing-a-leopard.png
the 1-dimensional Amanita-Allegro orbiters exclaim “spots! proves Amanita!”
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10551125c/f134.item.zoom
2 narrow stem-leaves + trio of leaves.

Egodeath Yahoo Group – Digest 123: 2012-12-31

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Group: egodeath Message: 6242 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 31/12/2012
Subject: Re: Sitting, standing, riding, carried, ferried, walking
Group: egodeath Message: 6243 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 01/01/2013
Subject: Panther (leopard) in Ayahuasca, Dionysus, Medieval myth
Group: egodeath Message: 6244 From: egodeath@yahoogroups.com Date: 01/01/2013
Subject: File – EgodeathGroupCharter.txt
Group: egodeath Message: 6245 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 01/01/2013
Subject: Re: Scholars and scientists agree with the Egodeath theory
Group: egodeath Message: 6246 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 02/01/2013
Subject: Re: Hypotheses for objections, closure, safety
Group: egodeath Message: 6247 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 02/01/2013
Subject: Re: Lyrics: The Spirit of Radio (Rush/Peart)
Group: egodeath Message: 6248 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 02/01/2013
Subject: Re: Lyrics: The Spirit of Radio (Rush/Peart)
Group: egodeath Message: 6249 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 02/01/2013
Subject: Re: Lyrics: The Spirit of Radio (Rush/Peart)
Group: egodeath Message: 6250 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 02/01/2013
Subject: Re: Studio wizardry trade/trip — Black Blade by Blue Oyster Cult
Group: egodeath Message: 6251 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 03/01/2013
Subject: Invisibility helmet, gatekeeper, dangers
Group: egodeath Message: 6252 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 03/01/2013
Subject: Re: Invisibility helmet, gatekeeper, dangers
Group: egodeath Message: 6253 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 03/01/2013
Subject: Re: Invisibility helmet, gatekeeper, dangers
Group: egodeath Message: 6254 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 04/01/2013
Subject: Re: Bk: Flights of Soul: Bib Visions, Heav Journeys, Pk Exper’s (Pil
Group: egodeath Message: 6255 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 05/01/2013
Subject: Re: Bk: Flights of Soul: Bib Visions, Heav Journeys, Pk Exper’s (Pil
Group: egodeath Message: 6256 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 05/01/2013
Subject: Re: Metaphor: Paul’s weakness, thorn in flesh
Group: egodeath Message: 6257 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 05/01/2013
Subject: Re: Metaphor: Paul’s weakness, thorn in flesh
Group: egodeath Message: 6258 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 05/01/2013
Subject: Re: Sitting, standing, riding, carried, ferried, walking
Group: egodeath Message: 6259 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 06/01/2013
Subject: Re: First drafts of the Theory in 1988
Group: egodeath Message: 6260 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 06/01/2013
Subject: Re: First drafts of the Theory in 1988
Group: egodeath Message: 6261 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 06/01/2013
Subject: Re: Hypotheses for objections, closure, safety
Group: egodeath Message: 6262 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 06/01/2013
Subject: Re: Bk: Flights of Soul: Bib Visions, Heav Journeys, Pk Exper’s (Pil
Group: egodeath Message: 6263 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 07/01/2013
Subject: Re: Hypotheses for objections, closure, safety
Group: egodeath Message: 6264 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 07/01/2013
Subject: Re: Extreme Radical Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion
Group: egodeath Message: 6265 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 07/01/2013
Subject: Re: Extreme Radical Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion
Group: egodeath Message: 6266 From: michaelagryder Date: 07/01/2013
Subject: Re: Hypotheses for objections, closure, safety
Group: egodeath Message: 6267 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 08/01/2013
Subject: Re: Hypotheses for objections, closure, safety
Group: egodeath Message: 6268 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 08/01/2013
Subject: Passover blood of sacrifice protectively averts threat of control di
Group: egodeath Message: 6269 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 08/01/2013
Subject: Re: Passover blood of sacrifice protectively averts threat of contro
Group: egodeath Message: 6270 From: michaelagryder Date: 08/01/2013
Subject: Re: Hypotheses for objections, closure, safety
Group: egodeath Message: 6271 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 09/01/2013
Subject: Defining new field: Theory of Loose Cognitive Phenomenology
Group: egodeath Message: 6272 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 09/01/2013
Subject: Re: Defining new field: Theory of Loose Cognitive Phenomenology
Group: egodeath Message: 6273 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 10/01/2013
Subject: Re: Hypotheses for objections, closure, safety
Group: egodeath Message: 6274 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 10/01/2013
Subject: Rock worship & the Rock altar of sacrifice
Group: egodeath Message: 6275 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 11/01/2013
Subject: Re: Rock worship & the Rock altar of sacrifice
Group: egodeath Message: 6276 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 12/01/2013
Subject: Re: Bk: Ruck/Hoffman: Entheogens, Myth, and Human Consciousness
Group: egodeath Message: 6277 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 13/01/2013
Subject: Re: Popularity of no-free-will/determinism, history of no-free-will
Group: egodeath Message: 6278 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 13/01/2013
Subject: Re: Hypotheses for objections, closure, safety
Group: egodeath Message: 6279 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 13/01/2013
Subject: Re: Rock worship & the Rock altar of sacrifice
Group: egodeath Message: 6280 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 13/01/2013
Subject: Re: Rock worship & the Rock altar of sacrifice
Group: egodeath Message: 6281 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 14/01/2013
Subject: Efficient theory: compact binary contrast & labels, innovative ergon
Group: egodeath Message: 6282 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 14/01/2013
Subject: Re: Efficient theory: compact binary contrast & labels, innovative e
Group: egodeath Message: 6283 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 14/01/2013
Subject: Heaven & Hell, meaning-flipping metaphor; Naturalism
Group: egodeath Message: 6284 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 14/01/2013
Subject: Re: Heaven & Hell, meaning-flipping metaphor; Naturalism
Group: egodeath Message: 6285 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 14/01/2013
Subject: Re: Intellectual autobiography & origins of Egodeath theory
Group: egodeath Message: 6286 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 14/01/2013
Subject: Re: Bks: Self illus., no-free-will, cog neuroTheol, neoPsych, no-Jes
Group: egodeath Message: 6287 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 14/01/2013
Subject: Re: Bks: Self illus., no-free-will, cog neuroTheol, neoPsych, no-Jes
Group: egodeath Message: 6288 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 15/01/2013
Subject: Re: Bks: Self illus., no-free-will, cog neuroTheol, neoPsych, no-Jes
Group: egodeath Message: 6289 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 15/01/2013
Subject: Re: Best cognitive-loosening agents & techniques
Group: egodeath Message: 6290 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 15/01/2013
Subject: Re: Paul’s road conversion = Balaam’s donkey conversion
Group: egodeath Message: 6291 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 15/01/2013
Subject: Re: Intellectual autobiography & origins of Egodeath theory



Group: egodeath Message: 6242 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 31/12/2012
Subject: Re: Sitting, standing, riding, carried, ferried, walking
Stone rock marble is true banqueting bench / throne of the king. King is turned to stone by seeing snake medusa beauty note he sits on a throne always understand throne is already stone and understood already king by definition is understood to have been as sacred king, been turned to stone by priest of the god during initiation all civilized kings proper were psych/enth initiate.

Mh orig discovery/theory dev, Dec 31 2012
Group: egodeath Message: 6243 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 01/01/2013
Subject: Panther (leopard) in Ayahuasca, Dionysus, Medieval myth
The panther is the ultimate, perfect, superior hunter, more so than other felines. Hunters knew this; they would carry a panther sculpture to help their own hunt. Panthers don’t usually hunt humans, but when they do, they are perfect hunters. They swim, run, climb trees, they do everything, they are perfect hunters. You couldn’t design a better hunter. Panthers are seen positively; respected, admired, and generally they spare humans.

Actaeon is a hunter. He hunted around in his mind and saw the goddess Artemis/Diana unclothed bathing in the fountain in the back of his mind at the source of his thoughts. She punished him by turning him into a branching-antlered deer and his own hunting dogs tore him to pieces.

Branching is possibility branching illusion in the Possibilism model of spacetime, as opposed to the Eternalism model of spacetime, which only has virtual, stubbed branching, with only spacetime worms being real; hydras are branching snakes thus are illusory.

The mental worldmodel dis-integrates in the loose cognitive state. Mental constructs dis-integrate and awareness lifts up and out of them, unbinding from mental constructs.

Panthers were admired in Rome and were in the arena. Everything in the arena, as in culture, was seen in terms of myth, as throughout the culture, which was all based deliberately around psychedelics-induced loose-cognitive dynamics; personal noncontrol, or mental model transformation about personal control power; and block-universe fatedness.

The panther in “medieval” myth (though see Edwin Johnson’s chronology), lives in a cave (the cosmic/underground/mind cave) and its mouth breathes an attractive scent which attracts a creature except the dragon (heimarmene fatedness snake, spacetime worldline perceived with elevated, un-bound awareness) into the cave, where the panther kills the creature. The mind is attracted to the control-vortex capability and potential, in which psychotic-like (Maenad initiates) loss-of-control is tangled interpenetrating with transcendent knowledge.

Transcendent knowledge, tangled with psychotomimetic threat of loss of control along with transcending all desire and fear, is the pearl of great price held in the claw of the dragon or fire-breathing panther. Fire is the attractive desire for and pursuit of transcendent knowledge about personal control, time, and personal agent identity.

Thus I have successfully deciphered and described and explained why per Benny Shanon on Ayahuasca in the Americas has the 3 most common cognitive phenomenology mytheme metaphors and analogy visions of ‘snake’, ‘panther’, and ‘palace’ as well as ‘snake’ and ‘king’ being the two most common world myths including Greek myth, and why ‘panther’ is a major attribute of Dionysus.

This morning I confirmed that not only is the panther seen as a hunter, as I previously posted about, but the ultimate ideal hunter, and found that the panther breathes not fire but an attractive scent pulling creatures into its cave, and the panther lives in a cave.


The careless, in-passing statement, never-justified assertion, that the Scientific Method is about predictions and confirming them, and that’s what makes something Scientific, proves that my Theory is scientifically proven and verified. I predicted that myth always and only makes sense by using my interpretive key that myth means Cybernetics/Heimarmene/Dissociation. Time and again the moment I learn of a myth, it instantly fits into my core theory and periphery mapping theory of deciphering religious mythic mystic metaphor analogies. No serious book on Philosophy of Science ever asserts and explains that Prediction and Verification is what makes for Science. All sloppy, in-passing mentions, in poorly written books, always assert that Prediction and Verification through Observation is what makes for Science.

A noxiously widespread myth of the 20th Century, found in all inferior sloppy uncritical books, is that Philosophers of Science assert that Prediction and Verification is what makes for Science. But no actual Philosopher of Science asserts that Prediction and Verification through Observation is what makes for Science. Based on the junk notion that Prediction and Verification is what makes for Science, it is proven that the Egodeath theory is Science and is scientifically verified as scientific fact. As Einstein said about observation and data: If the data doesn’t agree with the theory, then too bad for the data. The theory is correct.

Feyerabend says that in reality, as a matter of historical fact, the real Scientific Method is “anything goes”. Kuhn’s mystical mysterious “paradigm shift” like then-mysterious religious conversion, left itself open to that irrationalist attack Feyerabend used. Paul Thagard’s Conceptual Revolutions offers a rational, discernable basis for understanding the sophisticated logic of the conversion of a scientist from an old theory to the new. I point out that often there is no “old theory”, just a heap of wild speculation. Another book argues that the new theory is not proved, yet, when a scientist converts, as being better or having greater explanatory power.

As I posted the other day, a scientist converts to the new theory when the scientist reckons, per Thagard, that the new theory is a better investment, like having greater stock appreciation potential. A leading scientist doesn’t wait until the new stock value exceeds the old. He beats the crowd: he invests in the new theory *before* its value is commonly recognized. Clearly since 1988 (core theory) and 2001 (myth deciphering), the Egodeath theory has all potential to offer greater explanatory power than the “old theory” given that there is no old theory, just a heap of shot-in-the-dark scattered fragments.

This is all original theory-development work based on my research and idea-development since 1985. I figured out how all these ideas fit together and are the most important idea-combination, forming the Egodeath theory including my Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence which came together in 1988, in my draft article as displayed in my undergrad graduation portrait photographs in Fall 1988 including some initial forays into deciphering myth in terms of self-control cybernetics, pre-existing single future block-universe determinism (Eternalism), and psychedelics-induced loose cognitive binding of mental constructs.

Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com, January 1, 2013
Copyright (C) 2013 Michael S. Hoffman, http://www.egodeath.com All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 6244 From: egodeath@yahoogroups.com Date: 01/01/2013
Subject: File – EgodeathGroupCharter.txt
The Egodeath Yahoo group is a Weblog sent out by Michael Hoffman,
covering the cybernetic theory of ego death and ego transcendence,
including:

o Block-universe determinism/Fatedness, the closed
and preexisting future, tenseless time, free will as illusory, the
holographic universe, and predestination and Reformed theology.

o Cognitive science, mental construct processing, mental models,
ontological idealism, contemporary metaphysics of the continuant
self, cybernetic self-control, personal control agency, moral agency,
and self-government.

o Zen satori, short-path enlightenment, and Alan Watts;
transpersonal psychology, Ken Wilber, and integral theory.

o Entheogens and psychedelic drugs, mystery religions, mythic
metaphor and allegorical encoding, the mystic altered state, mystic
and religious experiencing, visionary states, religious rapture, and
Acid Rock mysticism.

o Loss of control, self-control seizure, cognitive instability, and
psychosis and schizophrenia.


— Michael Hoffman
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath
http://www.egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 6245 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 01/01/2013
Subject: Re: Scholars and scientists agree with the Egodeath theory
All fields lead to the Egodeath theory, unavoidably; the broad consensus picture of what we think we know is destined for collapse soon.

No-free-will is surprisingly extremely popular, now and in the history of Philosophy and Theology. Even though gleefully anti-rational freewillist QM is also popular. Not even Neurotheology has a clear view of the only theory that matters, the minimal, laser-focused Egodeath theory; the Cybernetic theory of ego transcendence.

The Egodeath theory includes but *combines*, and *only* combines, the popular niche topic of psychedelics and the recent new topic of entheogen history, the popular niche topic of anti-atheist religious experiencing capability, the popular niche topic of Eternalism and spacetime worms, and the topic of personal control, and the popular topic of myth, and the very new suddenly popular-breakthrough topic of ahistoricity of Jesus — now everyone is making an aside “I believe Jesus existed, but …” which they never would’ve said as recently as a couple years ago. Mad Rights is also trending upwards (insanity is barely discernable as being distinct from god consciousness).

As surely as the psychotomimetic mind’s thinking is being bent by the Black Blade of the Cult of Blue Oysters inward toward forcing one to think “I cannot resist the inevitable realization of being forced to go out of control”, we are headed toward transcendent disaster in collective scholarship: every thought we write certainly brings us in the labyrinth forced further into the black hole of loss of control of our writing: we find ourselves forced to write nothing but the words God puts into our pen and those words are the writing on the wall The King’s Kingdom Is Unavoidably Destined for Collapse; the historical Jesus is certainly doomed and cannot be saved; throw all the QM trash writing at the wall you desire, still, no-free-will trumps all version of QM in every one of your manyworlds.

There is no escape from your destiny, writers: myth all inscribes on our minds self-control seizure, the spacetime worm-filled marble block universe we are frozen fused to in our Salvia haze of clarity, the worm ate the branching bush that shaded me from the deathly light of the sun. The Philosophy of Time spells doom for the Modern egoic sovereign agent.

Ken Wilber’s empty framework cell for religious experiencing is empty and waiting for something more than vague Advaita Oneness: ready to plug in Ramesh Balsekar’s shock-the-newage no-free-will point in Advaita, or better, the full expansion of Balsekar which is Hoffman’s Egodeath theory — you can plug me in right where Wilber Scotch-taped as an afterthought “Also: drugs” onto his key diagram, several books after Ken Wilber’s first book, which opens by censoring Nitrous Oxide from William James statement “On Nitrous Oxide, it occurred to me that…” All roads lead to Rome. In loosecog, all thoughts lead to “I am inevitably destined unavoidably to realize transcendent loss of control.”

In scholarship now, all writings lead clearer and clearer to the Egodeath theory it cannot be avoided, there’s no way now to slow down our thoughts, to put on the brakes, there is no handle to slow this train down, no way to jump off the tracks on this path along the vine yard with no place to turn to the left or to the right as we halt at the angel of death gatekeeper whirling the sword of fire through which we are forced to pass to gain thinking that will no longer collapse in a heap of rubble in five minutes from now. I can see the future and the king of this world of dim muddy scholarship is about to see the writing on the wall and be turned to stone his power dead unless he turns and repents and re-thinks what do myth and entheogens and the Philosophy of Time and ahistoricity of Jesus all have in common?

How can we avoid like John Pilch’s heroic effort of avoidance, writing about the compelling conjoining forming an unavoidable topic we must explicitly discuss, of where today’s Shamanism revolution in religious books comes together with the Entheogen theory of religion and myth (C. Ruck & M. Hoffman January 2013) and our new clear model of spacetime worms in the Eternalist Philosophy of Time? The Prohibition Press dictates that it is forbidden to write about such combinations. Let us write instead the usual old story before Bart Ehrman wrecked everything by shining the spotlight on the question Did Jesus Exist? We want to go back to safety of egoic stable delusion, not look ahead at the beautiful compelling elegant combination that is the Egodeath theory and subcombinations of its topics.

Who can save us from this inevitable collapse of everything we thought we knew about Jesus, our own history, Wikipedia fallen, all we thought we knew, our reality is all founded on dust, mud, our very calendar year numbers all a question mark. What really happened in the formation of New Testament Christianity, and when? It is all a big now big question mark and nothing at Wikipedia can be trusted, as it is all founded on the printing press controlled by the Catholic forgers leading to the book of category errors, the Encyclopedia Britannica. Woe is us scholars. Even Robert Anton Wilson cannot save our sorry mountain of massive category errors from collapsing into rubble. Who can be the savior of Christianity? of Christian reality, the Christian reality tunnel that is our Modern world?

You would think that the huge popularity of gleefully bizarre anti-rational interpretations of QM is violently opposed to determinism aka no-free-will. I have often pointed out that a main reason for rejecting Newtonian spacetime and even Special Relativity, demonizing those and running into the bosom of QM, is to hide in the Last Preserve of free will. But strangely, to my surprise, the more that I defended my unpopular underdog view, of no-free-will, the more I find that almost everyone asserts no-free-will. Sure, I’m glad to get some confirmation of my Theory, but it is shocking how extremely popular no-free-will is, at the same time as everybody’s at the bosom of QM to try to evade rationality and defend their stupid freewill position.

How can no-free-will be so popular, at the same time as freewillist QM is so popular? Are these two, opposed camps of writers?

I loathe Robert Anton Wilson’s gleeful sensationalist hyping of deliberately anti-rational, gleefully anti-rational interpretations of Quantum Mechanics, the very worst sort of anti-rationalist gleefulness, like how Leonard Peikoff describes the mindset of the surrealism culture of Weimar Germany in his book The Ominous Parallels [between 20th Century U.S. and 1930s Weimar culture in Germany]. Niels Bohr’s Copenhagenism interpretation of QM reeks of gleeful sensationalist anti-rationalism: a bad theory adopted for bad, psychological reasons. James T. Cushing criticized the popularity of the Copenhagen interpretation against David Bohm’s neglected hidden variables determinism interpretation. Two distinct analysis: what’s the case scientifically (ontology) vs. what are the motives psychologically.

Some Philosophy of Science pays attention to “sociology” of science but I think there lacks books on the *psychology* of science: why, psychologically, are people drawn to one scientific theory or interpretation, versus another? Ken Wilber edited and compiled a couple books about the importance of distinguishing between religious views and scientific views: religion is compatible with science, religion is not demonstrated or definitively supported by science.

My views are a little different. To grasp religious truth or transcendent mental coherence, requires scientific thinking: orderly, analytical, precise, careful, incorporating loosecog observation (per Wilber), non-metaphor dependent, direct, explicit. You have to think like an android, programmed by Paul Thagard (Conceptual Revolutions), to straighten out ideas in Transcendent Knowledge.

People are inconsistent. They rabidly for thrills gleefully assert no-free-will: have you heard about the new neuroscience experiment? It disproves free will!! And they rabidly for thrills assert gleefully anti-rational QM because they like it because it supports freewill. Here’s how the huge popularity of no-free-will fits coherently with the huge popularity of freewill QM: people are irrational and incoherent. News flash!

The egoic mental model is incoherent compared to the transcendent mental model. But lately I am more inclined to focus on innate state-specific mental structures (Wilber) and state-specific cognitive phenomenology, as clearly asserted in my main article. Suppose a new experiment proves that Relativity is false or that the Copenhagenist interpretation is false or the QM is false. Suddenly (Wilber points out), all the pop trash junk that’s been written showing how QM supports free will, religion, and the American way, we must burn in a bonfire as false, wrong, misleading irrational mental pollution. Let not my Egodeath theory be ever subject to such disproof:

A given fact: in tightcog, the egoic personal control system and mental worldmodel innately arises, thrives, and coheres.
A given fact: in loosecog, the transcendent personal control system and mental worldmodel innately arises, thrives, and coheres.
Fact: these given facts are regardless of any theories of neuroscience, QM, or scientific findings about spacetime. It is an unassailable given observational datum that tightcog gives the egoic mental model which uses the Possibilism model of time (“tree”, flowing water, autonomous sovereign king) *and* that loosecog gives the transcendent mental model which uses the Eternalism model of time (“snake”, marble block, puppet king dancing on God’s string).

It is only misleading to introduce the fields of Neuroscience and Relativity and QM in support of or against these given facts which live and exist and breathe vitally within the distinct realm of cognitive phenomenology. Down with neuroscience, down with spacetime science, up with Cognitive Phenomenology, which is *the* realm on which my breakthrough Theory of Egodeath and the Cybernetic theory of ego transcendence resides. Neither is the realm in which Egodeath theory resides, the realm of Trendy Information Science, Trendy Cybercult, Trendy post-Modern-ism, trendy Neuroscience or Neurotheology.

To Hell with Neurotheology; the only useful thing is Cognitive Phenomenology, as I formulated in the scope and intent of my Mental Construct Processing view in April 1987 after my Spring 1986 General Semantics course, and as Benny Shanon’s scope (but better scoped than his) in his 2002 book The Antipodes of the Mind: Charting the Phenomenology of the Ayahuasca Experience.

The problem with the fields of QM, Neurotheology, Philosophy of Time, Transpersonal Psychology, Neurotheology, Atheism, Ahistoricity, Free Will and Determinism, and Entheogens and Psychedelics, and Myth, and Mysticism, and Psychology of Religion, and Theories of Religion, is that they are packed with irrelevant crap and have the pieces of import scattered fragmented buried hidden overgrown obscured. Relevant transcendent truth is more visible in Rock mysticism lyrics than in today’s bad, badly written, irrelevancy-filled fields.

If you know what to look for — IF! — you can find the Egodeath theory everywhere in every book in every field; per delusions of reference, the Egodeath theory is obvious everywhere you look; if you think about Ivory soap, clearly that implies the Egodeath theory: purifying thinking, therefore you perceive the psychotic threat of loss of control, wonderful peace and light advice “transcend desire and fear” to which all psychotics nod assent: wisdom indeed, let me prove it to you, to myself, as the voice of truth about control power in my mind is commanding me to do. Happy advice: transcend all desire and fear. Insanely great advice. Ivory soap is mentioned and advocated in the book of Revelation, advocated by the highest angel of God; God commands that you buy Ivory soap.

There is no escape: as you crawl desperate pleading “No, no, I must not think that Thought, that psychotic thought: Truth Is Loss of Control, but every thing every topic I think about forces my mind, there is no escape, junk tele-vision shows too are all about triggering my Realization that Truth Is Loss Of Control; escape the forced thought that kills, that throws me into unavoidable psychosis, by turning on the radio, but I am not imagining it I swear he distinctly sang “invisible railways” where the liner notes say “invisible airwaves” in Permanent Waves. It is as if the songs on the popular Rock station are broadcasting messages meant for me to be the One in the Modern world who makes a brand new discovery of timeless religious revelation.

“If you want to learn to fly you’d better learn how to kneel, on your knees boy.”

Read Kant: there it is right there, Kant says “Michael Hoffman’s Egodeath theory is coherent and profound and compelling.” Joseph Campbell, Alan Watts, Ken Wilber, there is no escape they are all talking about Michael Hoffman’s Egodeath theory all thoughts force bend thinking inwards towards the underworld fountain in the back of the cave of the mind lured drawn by tractor beam of the Death Star attracted to the smell you cannot reason your way away from smelling the attractive stimulating smell coming from behind your mask of personal control thinking.

Every book ever written is a veiled pointer, recommendation, blurb, a footnote to the Egodeath theory as surely as Freke and Gandy’s book The Jesus Mysteries sells Elaine Pagels’ book The Gnostic Gospels (1979), written after The Gnostic Paul (1975), written after The Johannine Gospel in Gnostic Exegesis (1973). (I thought of Ivory soap randomly, above; it was not an artificial setup example.) In Antiquity, all aspects of culture were explicitly presented like we’d now call Delusions of Reference: all items were deliberately framed, vigorously as much as possible, to point to psychedelics ego death Cybernetics/Heimarmene/Dissociation metaphor, as much as Alex Grey says art should forcibly point to transcendent experiencing.

In the sorry, forgetful, single-state, tight-cog-only Modern era, still, all books point to Transcendent Knowledge per the Egodeath theory — but quite poorly and ineffectively, buried in noise and junk and confusion, fragmented, half-buried, in ruins in the Kali Yuga.

Out of that mud, dirty diamonds hardly visible, sprang fully formed 25 years ago January 11, 1988, a new dispensation of the Holy Spirit of Truth, in the computer center, on an Apple Mac, in Microsoft Word, as a siren sounded I thought “Is this siren coming for me because I am to go psychomimetic?” and the crystalline block universe idea relative to personal noncontrol fell together with all my best ideas from the potent restart of my thinking with room scrambling control beyond control in April 1987 when my father was dying and it was do or die for saving my semester but I was in April 1987 onto hourly breakthroughs how can I justify wasting my time on classwork?

My friend, an angel, walked by the glass window of the computer lab, and I asked him his major, Mechanical Engineering, minutes after I knew I had the massive breakthrough of the Block Universe theory of the nature of ego transcendence. Now that pretty holy computer lab is replaced by a big new computer building but I still want a plaque at that window where I received the block universe and talked to the angel who helped me on Shakedown Street.

My work isn’t about the far away area of the mind like Shanon; the Egodeath theory is about Western university Engineering deadheads in today’s Psychedelic 80s, in 1985-1989 going back to the beginning of the world in 1964 with the song Help! by John Lennon, as well as 1981 Diary of a Madman (by Bob Daisley’s band Blizzard of Ozz) and 1975 Caress of Steel on your neck by the guillotine and Ride the Lightning 1985 by Metallica — though actually I didn’t decipher Acid Rock mysticism lyrics until around 1988 (?) when I started to recognize the meaning of Bob Daisley’s lyrics, with the open door in my cottage and a lightning storm going on while the vinyl rotated.

I wasn’t able to make it fit together: the psychedelics revelation about the real nature of ego transcendence against Wilber and the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, versus religious history, of which I knew very little in the late 1980s. Neither was I at all literate or informed about writings about psychedelics. My mind wasn’t away far away in the South world of the Americas, nor far away in the history of Psychedelics; my thinking and theorizing was based right here in the 1980s in Western University Engineering student life, not antipodes of the mind, but the Shakedown Street of the current culture.

The ultimate product of the Psychedelic 80s, my Egodeath theory, was squarely a product untainted and uninformed, illiterate, except for the detail of having read (besides skimming Minsky’s AI book The Society of Mind) Wilber’s early books, Watts’ Way of Zen, and skimming Trungpa. And I grew up in the Bible-only Church of Christ (grandparents), and in Jewish temple (mother), and newage and human potential (father). As much as possible, the Egodeath theory arose from General Semantics, Self Help human potential, and the College of Engineering, and Rock culture, here and now, in this place and this era, not travelling away to the geographical antipodes nor time-travelling somewhere in time away from here.

The Egodeath theory is a product of here, now, the 20th Century, *our own* culture, not inherited, not borrowed. We stand on our own, we truly Modern religionists of the Egodeath theory which is *our* own original product, informed by Wilber’s early books and Watts’ presentation of Zen and by early 20th Century General Semantics. I am the source of the Egodeath theory and my life is as pure as can be purely a product of today’s Now culture, our own native culture, indigenous Engineering college life.

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com, January 1, 2013
Copyright (C) 2013 Michael S. Hoffman, http://www.egodeath.com All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 6246 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 02/01/2013
Subject: Re: Hypotheses for objections, closure, safety
The following conditions provide the greatest safety and the least need to fear the loss of control in the Holy psychedelic entheogenic psychotomimetic cognitive state of the Maenads of Dionysiac possession. Maidens, or rather, mature perfected epoptes:

o Society has studied the Egodeath theory and discussed all aspects of transcending personal control power for 50 years.

o Using 4-HO-DiPT or even shorter-lasting psychedelics.

o Have Thorazine CPZ Chlorpromazine available (see “I Wanna Be Sedated” in the scriptures of the muses)

o Everyone knows how to be a trip guide.

o Psychedelic mixed wine is culturally integrated like in Athens and the Roman Empire, such as recreational religious burial banqueting clubs.

When these conditions are met, Cognitive Scientists have the least need to fear the near-future onset of unavoidable destined psychotomimetic loss of control over their intention; the least fear that the mind is fated to be about to be coerced into intending violating safety, sanity, control, and a viable future. Thus I guarantee that there is no risk of intending to violate your sanity/safety/future/control, unless you think slightly incorrectly about unchained thinking, and existential transcendence of fear and desire, in which case I guarantee you are fated to violate your sanity/safety/control/future. If the angel sings praise to God on the throne slightly ahead of Time or late, or slightly out of pitch, the angel is instantly cast into the river of fire.

So you see it is perfectly safe here in the psychotomimetic Dionysian Maenad world of this research laboratory, if all safety measures are perfectly in place and you never make any mistakes. Thus there is no longer any reason to fear, as long as you bow and practice trusting your unchained mind that’s controlled by hidden, mysterious Controller X and machine-like fatedness. Cognitive Scientists of 2050, you almost have to be as reverent and careful and prayerful as when riding a bicycle downtown in traffic, which I cannot recommend to friends and family. People are run over and die all the time that way; witness the white bicycles and flowers around town. Religion without danger is like computers that are perfectly secure: if a computer exists, it’s insecure.

Where there is religion, there is danger and threat of loss of control, even from merely the fact of having loose cognition and transcending the mind-constraining safety egoic control system, dull-witted boring stability, that separates one from God or transcendent vivid consciousness, preventing dancing with the control vortex surfing in and out of the event horizon where hooking into the loss of control vortex can be felt and played with like a climax toying.

On the other hand, when your thinking is fully God-shaped, God-impressed, or God-formed, through 50 years of studying the Egodeath theory and control, the danger is routinized-away, like the banqueters are expected to hold their shallow “cup” (plate) without spilling it. You are expected by that advanced level and culture, to keep your balance, yet Dionysus is accompanied by the old man so inebriated he has to be helped onto his donkey. The danger is safe.

Religious freedom is danger freedom — deal with it and be an American adult man. Or else admit that real religion is illegal, you are false governors self-appointed to preside over a lie, and religious freedom is an empty sham, phony, pretense, counterfeit.

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com, January 1, 2013
Copyright (C) 2013 Michael S. Hoffman, http://www.egodeath.com All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 6247 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 02/01/2013
Subject: Re: Lyrics: The Spirit of Radio (Rush/Peart)
Also some commentary on free will which follows the spirit of radio.

I saw Rush on the Permanent Waves tour. As we were about to leave, I had an extra ticket, and went across the street to the garage band drummer’s house (a classmate) and asked if he wanted to go *now*, so he came with us.

The Spirit of Radio
Neil Peart/Rush
excerpts with fresh new analysis January 1, 2013 by Michael Hoffman, for scholarly analysis
http://amazon.com/o/asin/B000001ESN

A companion unobtrusive [God]
Plays the song that’s so elusive [hidden message, magic double meanings]
And the magic music makes your morning mood.

Off on your way, hit the open road, [your future is open with possibility branching up to you to control and create your future]
There is magic at your fingers [tremors of loosecog energy]

Invisible airwaves/railways crackle with life
Bright antenna bristle with the energy [bristling loosecog energy tremors]
Emotional feedback on timeless wavelength [feedback of fear and sense of meaningfulness lies that way, feeling of frozen time Eternalism block universe]
Bearing a gift beyond price, almost free [transcendent knowledge that freewill power is only virtual power]

All this machinery making modern music [fatedness machinery of your hidden worldline rail spacetime worm tunnel of dubious trustworthiness uncaring yet you have to trust it with your life and control of your mental intention it is your umbilical cord feeding you your near-future intentions]
Can still be open-hearted. [despite seeing that you fatally depend on trusting a non-personal fatedness machine to feed you your intentions, you can assume heart, compassion, mercy, life]
Not so coldly charted, it’s really just a question [fatedness, the machine computer that produces your intentions, is not uncaring or harsh, but what matters is you be honest about your dependent situation]
Of your honesty, yeah, your honesty [sung “you honestly”]

One likes to believe in the freedom of music, [we value freewill power, we like to believe in such freedom]
But glittering prizes and endless compromises [the brilliant pearl of great price, transcendent vision, and seeing the flaws of the personal freedom premise]
Shatter the illusion of integrity. [shatters the illusion of egoic personal control power that steers through possibility branching]

For the words of the profits were written on the studio wall, [the words of the prophets are “the egoic king is doomed soon for his kingdom kingship power to collapse unless he changes his thinking”]
Concert hall
And echoes with the sounds of salesmen. [can be heard as “sailsmen”, alluding echoing 1975’s No One at the Bridge and piloting the space ship to the black hole. ego death is the disappearance of cybernetic steersmanship]


Crossover the interpretation mode between these songs on the albums Caress of Steel through Power Windows; keep all the analyses in mind across songs, just as all myth refers to Cybernetics/Heimarmene/Dissociation. It is most effective to present commentary on the entire album together.


The next song on the album is Freewill. It is about free will. The lyrics go:

Life is nothing left to chance
A host of holy horrors to direct our aimless dance

A planet of playthings
We dance on the strings
Of powers we cannot conceive/perceive

The gods are malign
Blame is better to give than receive [don’t say I’m a moral control agent; I’m merely a puppet of God, blame and praise him only]

You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice
If you choose not to decide, you still haven’t/have made a choice
You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill/cure [own your choice you are forced to make between wrathfully intending violating the egoic control system, versus mercifully preserving your future/control/sanity/safety]

They were dealt a losing hand
The cards were stacked against them

All preordained
A prisoner in chains
A victim of venomous fate [heimarmene snake]

Kicked in the face
You can’t/can pray for a place
In heaven’s unearthly estate

Lyric commentary and analysis by Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com, January 1, 2013
Group: egodeath Message: 6248 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 02/01/2013
Subject: Re: Lyrics: The Spirit of Radio (Rush/Peart)
Off on your way, hit the open road
vs.
Invisible railways crackle with life

= tree vs. snake
= Possibilism vs. Eternalism
= branching future vs. single preexisting future
= egoic control thinking vs. transcendent control thinking

Lyric commentary and analysis by Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com, January 1, 2013
Group: egodeath Message: 6249 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 02/01/2013
Subject: Re: Lyrics: The Spirit of Radio (Rush/Peart)
A companion unobtrusive
Plays the song that’s so elusive

One’s normally hidden transpersonal self and worldline, in loosecog, unveils briefly an elusive glimpse, perceiving and revealing and showing to un-bound awareness the altered-state mental worldmodel of self, time, and control: the perspective that is elusive and is guarded by the threatening gatekeeper angel of death, dragon, of the threat of loss of control which is interwoven with valuable deeply meaningful and attractive transcendent knowledge about self, time, and control — transcendent thinking, Transcendent Knowledge, the Egodeath theory, the transcendent conceptual system, the transcendent worldmodel including the necessary-to-develop transcendent control system like learning to ride a bicycle balancing not crashing.

To play the song, to see the blinding vision of the source of control, without going insane or out of control, the mind must learn transcendent, transpersonal self-control cybernetics. My first draft article in 1988 describes and explains why the truth is elusive and you have to venture carefully, repeatedly, to enter this state disengaging your control system while reconfiguring your control-system on-the-fly.

Lyric commentary and analysis by Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com, January 1, 2013
Group: egodeath Message: 6250 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 02/01/2013
Subject: Re: Studio wizardry trade/trip — Black Blade by Blue Oyster Cult
Song: Black Blade
Album: Cultosaurus Erectus
Artist: Blue Oyster Cult
exegesis by Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com, January 1, 2013 (I’ve commented on these lyrics for many years)

I have this feeling that my luck is none too good [strong sense, that Philosophy can’t explain-away by definitions, of a real, truly problematic personal control situation rapidly approaching in the loose cognitive state induced by psychedelics]
This sword here at my side don’t act the way it should [sword is Acid and its effect on personal control, promising god-mode control of one’s mind but bringing loss of control with that]
Keeps calling me its master, but I feel like its slave
Hauling me faster and faster to an early, early grave [anticipation of ego death, cancellation of personal control power across time]
And it howls! It howls like hell! [feedback: thinking about and feeling the sensation of disengagement of egoic safety control constraints, causes intensification of that feeling, thinking, and perceiving of personal control disengagement and transformation]

I’m told it’s my duty to fight against the law [battle of the mind and of the personal control system, against one’s own mind and personal control system and mental constraints across time]
That wizardry’s my trade/trip and I was born to wade through gore [thought of going dangerously out of control enabled and forced by transpersonal fatedness]
I just want to be a lover, not a red-eyed screaming ghoul
I wish it’d picked another to be its killing tool [mere metaphorical ego death and the threat of intending general loss of control in the course of exercising the revelatory enlightening and mind-transforming dynamics of transcending personal control]

Black Blade, Black Blade
Forged a billion years ago
Black Blade, Black Blade
Killing so its power can grow… grow, grow! [runaway feedback of the thought of loss of control due to increasingly precise thinking about the limits of control; the control vortex]
[“grow” — here’s where printed lyrics fail and you have to bother and trouble yourself to actually listen to the artist and hold the vinyl to your eyes, immersively]

It’s death from the beginning to the end of time [loose cog block universe *experience* (not mere ordinary-state philosophy books) of timelessness, frozen unchanging time embeddedness]
And I’m the cosmic champion and I hold a (holy) mystic sign [forget Campbell — this is the *real* “hero’s journey” told in myth]
And the whole world’s dying and the burden’s mine [hypersolipsism: no one else is in this bubble of perception and mental virtual reality; all egoic control agents are seen as illusory, only frozen spacetime worldlines exist, as people; omni-ego-death of everyone at all times, as seen through the individual mind’s transcendent loosecog perspective]
And the black sword keeps on killing ’til the end of time

Black Blade, Black Blade
Bringing chaos to the world we know [the old control-chaos monster Typhon: my animal control/constraint system is disengaged, my mind is allowed to do anything it can, and my control transcends any guidance system, and to top it off, my thoughts are helplessly injected by the worldline given to me from outside my control domain]
Black Blade, Black Blade
And it’s using me to kill/cure my friends [curing everyone of egoic personal control delusion and mental dys-integrity]

Black Blade, Black Blade
Getting stronger so the world will end [in addition to the ancient mystical sense, the logical prospect in the Modern era of spreading the Egodeath theory/perspective to everyone; the entire deluded society undergoing the Egodeath enlightenment all at once]
Black Blade, Black Blade
Forcing my mind to bend and bend [the control vortex, attracting and coercing thinking to focus on ego death and the threat of loss of control along with giving the greatest value, salvation, purification, regeneration, religious revelation, cancellation of sin, eternal durability/athanatos/eternal life/immortality, and mystical enlightenment]

[vocorder; this is the ego-killing sword of loosecog control revelation talking; the threatening and ego-killing aspect of transpersonal realization:]

I am the Black Blade
Forged a million billion years ago [the worldline of everyone was created outside of time]
My cosmic soul it goes on for eternity [experience of frozen pre-existing future block universe Eternalism — do these dimwitted academics writing books about Time realize you can *experience* Eternalism and that that’s in fact what religious consciousness is all about??]
Carving out destiny [the Creator outside time created all our spacetime worm worldlines that are forced upon us always, whether secretly as in tightcog or revealed as in loosecog]
Bringing in the Lords of Chaos [control chaos]
Bringing up the Beasts of Hades [the old monster: the threat of loss of control, control chaos, fated self-violation forced by the fated snake of your worldline]
Sucking out the souls of heroes [ego death, mind must sacrifice and repudiate its claim to be a moral control agent]
Laying waste to knights and ladies [heroes and god-rap’d psyches]
My master is my slave [personal noncontrol of oneself across time]
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
You poor f*ck*ng humans [on fadeout] [humans in myth would be expressed as “you poor doomed and condemned mortals” shadows of illusion that collapse upon torch light revealing their nature]

Lyric commentary and analysis by Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com, January 1, 2013, based on original theory-development since 1985
Group: egodeath Message: 6251 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 03/01/2013
Subject: Invisibility helmet, gatekeeper, dangers
To not die from battling against your fated thoughts, think of the fatedness snake on a nonbranching pole, affirm and accept that, to conform your thinking to be immune from conflicting with the loosecog block universe worldline perspective. How technically do we avoid all aspects of danger and fear of red alert rapidly approaching disaster alert, feeling approaching a psychotic control state? Ego death control turmoil panic from sensing the block universe worldline is only one of the set of loosecog experiences. Each loosecog phenomenon brings its own distinct dangers. Every danger has a kind of safety medicine, every toxin a tonic.

I mapped all aspects of all dangers of all cog phenomena with their solutions or rebuttals. Transcending all control thinking has its magic transcendent need for life-affirming bias, undecidable rationally but viable transcendence must choose life. To conform to noncontrol or block universe fatedness, be no one already, die ego death and be invisible to the gatekeeper. Pre-conform to loosecog perspective before entering loosecog. Myth says pray to personal creator of your worldline.

Axiom: there’s a technical nonmyth equivalent, eg transcendent trust and affirmation of conformity, like Job regardless of life content and outcome. Else you dont conform to the altstate world and are seen by gatekeeper archons and thrown out of harmony into the purifying flames of selfstrife and reconfiguration until you submit and trust and conform your thinking to eliminate mismatch between your thinking and the altered state dynamics. This is the deciphering of tradition and rock mysticism, and we are left with lots of discussion and debate: how must and can the Red Alert danger approaching disaster alert occur or be prevented for the Cog Sciist?

Advanced mystics and current modern Rock explorers continue to experience — as one of many cog phen — red alert danger flag: rapidly approaching psychotic control state. The mind continues to have that potential, but many phen’a have many danger aspects and solutions to discuss debate and question: can we map all the danger aspects more fully and tame this dangerous extremely valuable loosecog state? Certainly denying or underrepresenting dangers is bad, not the way. McKenna should have led discussion about his dangers he encountered on mushrooms. I found how to ask many critical questions, after figuring out the entire language of myth and theology that describes loosecog insights, phen, & dangers and solutions historically used and in Rock.

How are loosecog dynamics tho, really? Technically? Analytic Philosophy, Control Systems engineering, Expert System modelling: better-analyze all that myth knows and Egodeath theory which is complete in all the basics. Certainly we should adopt and fully understand the block universe model which is strongly affirmed in myth. is there more in an improvement over that?

Ego death 101 will always be:
number one self-control cybernetics
number two block universe determinism
number three dissociation
number four analogies about those

Those can be detailed and the various dangers of the various cognitive phenomenology of the loose cognitive state be all mapped and mitigated to harness fully and safely the loose cog state for general use and for cognitive science research.

Michael Hoffman Egodeath.com jan 2 2012
Group: egodeath Message: 6252 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 03/01/2013
Subject: Re: Invisibility helmet, gatekeeper, dangers
Written 2013 not 2012
Group: egodeath Message: 6253 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 03/01/2013
Subject: Re: Invisibility helmet, gatekeeper, dangers
> To not die from battling against your fated thoughts, think of the fatedness snake on a nonbranching pole,

Or equivalently with different emphases think of and affirm the meaning of the sacrificed king fastened to the tree/pole/cross/stake, by conforming your control- and time-thinking to that, is to stabilize those danger aspects of loosecog.

>affirm and accept that, to conform your thinking to be immune from conflicting with the loosecog block universe worldline perspective. How technically do we avoid all aspects of danger
>
> I mapped all aspects of all dangers of all cog phenomena with their solutions or rebuttals.

My notes files and voice recordings have more, no time but what I post reflects all of my ideas well enough. Ultimately cognitive scientists and androids will mentally picture myth and rock lyrics and technical non-metaphorical theory of Transcendent Knowledge in the Cybernetic Theory of ego transcendence, to account for and relatively neutralize the fully identified dangers of each experiential phenomenon in the loose cognitive state.

— michael hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 6254 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 04/01/2013
Subject: Re: Bk: Flights of Soul: Bib Visions, Heav Journeys, Pk Exper’s (Pil
Here is my Amazon book review. Please indicate as soon as possible whether this review was helpful, if it is visible at Amazon.

Flights of the Soul: Visions, Heavenly Journeys, and Peak Experiences in the Biblical World
John Pilch
http://amazon.com/o/asin/B007M7CUTI
April 2011

5.0 out of 5 stars
Partly covers altered state in Bible & Antiquity, a halting step forward
January 3, 2013
By Michael Hoffman (Egodeath.com)

Pilch barely mentions psychoactive drugs — this is a glaring, elephant-in-the-room omission. He’s free to tiptoe around the subject, self-censoring and evading the topic, but many people want and expect him to write something about the topic of entheogens, given his book title and his coverage of religious alternate states of consciousness, Shamanism, and his citing many books that do have the expected coverage of entheogenic, visionary, psychedelic, psychoactive drug plants and chemicals.

Pilch doesn’t deny that drugs are relevant, he refrains from making any points about them at all; he doesn’t even list the possible hypotheses to answer the Grand Unevadeable Question I pose: To what extent were entheogens used throughout Christian history? Pilch implicitly acts as if any non-drug method is as plausible as drugs for inducing the mystic altered state. He is eager to propose and discuss any technique other than drugs.

I object that yes, there are many ways of accessing altered states, but what matters in the Bible is the intense mystic altered state, and there is only one guaranteed way of inducing the intense mystic altered state on-demand: visionary drug plants and chemicals. For example, per Pilch, blocking your nostril gives you an altered state — but, I argue it does so less reliably and generally less intensely than entheogens.

Just because a technique such as bodily postures can lead to some degree of some kind of altered state, doesn’t mean that that method is a strong candidate as an explanatory theory of the visionary altered state in the Bible, compared to the Maximal Entheogen Theory, which asserts that all of Antiquity was centered around entheogenic mixed wine, and religious literature of Antiquity is mystic fiction written in that cultural context.

Pilch argues rightly that the visionary state was routinely expected in Antiquity. But his theory of why they had access to this so readily, and we don’t, is laughably vague: the Enlightenment brought different “bio-psycho-social” conditions. I object that if people had the same brains as we do, as Pilch rightly asserts, a vastly better, and fully specific explanation is that their culture was based around entheogenic mixed wine, and modern culture isn’t, and that is a sound, plausible explanation, that has a kind of strong evidence. Pilch waffles, on the one hand portraying modern consciousness as lacking an intense visionary state of seeing Jesus, and on the other, asserting that altered states are common.

I point out more discerningly, that weak altered states are common in the modern era thorugh non-drug means, and that the intense visionary mystic altered state has often been accessed in the modern era, on-demand, through psychoactive psychedelic entheogenic drug plants and chemicals, which map to the Bible and Antiquity themes of eating and drinking followed by the intense visionary altered state.

The superior efficacy and reliability of drugs are evaded and avoided, timidly tiptoed around by Pilch; he leaves it to the reader to do his expected work for him, his directly, centrally crucial work, of covering specifically the drug technique. He censors-out the subject of entheogens every time, within his lists of hardly effective or reliable methods of inducing the intense mystic altered state, such as bodily postures, nostril-blocking, controlled breathing, “and many other methods”, as if all the methods are as strong of candiates as entheogens. Based on the book’s title, most of the audience for this book wants and expects him to deliver the goods and cover entheogens. Alas he doesn’t deliver on this, leaving it to the reader to investigate putting these pieces together.

Pilch is halfway between really hopelessly clueless Bible scholars, who lack the concept of altered states, and the Maximal Entheogen Theory of religious myth which I’ve defined, which is that everyone in Antiquity routinely used entheogenic mixed wine, and wrote fiction alluding to mixed-wine experiences, for an audience who routinely used entheogenic mixed wine and psychoactive sacred meals. Pilch uncritically assumes that Jesus and Paul and crew are historical; he doesn’t consider whether the Bible and its characters is 100% fictional.

Pilch’s views go toward that direction of reading the Bible as metaphorical description of the intense mystic altered state, incorporating social-political themes as well, but less consistently than the entheogen-fiction reading of the Bible, and therefore his position such as on ‘etic’ and ’emic’ and ‘derived’ theories, along with his charts of altered-state options, is a little confused and garbled. His views are certainly superior and an advance compared to scholars who lack the concept of altered state visionary description in the Bible, and read “vision of Jesus” as if it’s in the ordinary state of consciousness.

Pilch provides useful building blocks toward a consistent theory of altered states in religious myth, but his work already looks dated, tepid, and too-timid, from the point of view of maximal ahistoricity and nonliteralism combined with the maximal entheogen theory of religion, according to which the main, normal way of accessing the intense mystic altered state in the Bible and historical religion is entheogens, with other methods being merely supplementary.

The problem is, if Pilch is right, then he fails to go far enough to actually cover this subject of altered states in the Bible and its context of Antiquity. He has us go this direction, toward Shamanistic altered states — but only a tiny bit, then come to a jarring halt at the invisible thought-boundary, hitting our heads on the invisible but blatantly, totally obvious, glaring “Do Not Cross!” barrier when it comes to visionary plants. People alienated from the altered state won’t agree with his book, because Pilch’s proposal exits the ordinary state of consciousness, and people interested in the altered state won’t agree with his book, because he withholds too much.

As an ahistoricity and entheogen scholar and theorist, it took me a long time to warm up to this book. It’s hard to overlook and forgive Pilch for censoring-out the obvious highly relevant topic of entheogens from his book that claims to cover the mystic altered state in the Bible and in its context of Antiquity. In the end, Pilch is a good guy, making progress toward the direction of a more intelligent, informed, genre-appropriate mode of thinking. But censoring-out entheogens is a distractingly glaring and unhelpful author’s choice, given the huge un-served demand for such coverage within Pilch’s subject of altered states in religion.

His uncritical assumption that the characters in the New Testament are historical individuals further hinders reading the genre of mystic altered state metaphor in the intended mode; we still are left with a far too literalist perspective as if the food and drink in myth is ordinary food and drink. The result can only be a massive category error, which is exactly the outsider’s perspective, falling headlong into the prepared misleading trap. Pilch’s work is far from the last word; in the end, he provides merely a helpful building block toward an eventual successful explanation of how the ancients routinely accessed on-demand the intense mystic altered state in connection with sacred meals including mixed wine.

Pilch’s books about altered states in the Bible amount to an important, much needed step forward toward sensible explanation and reading the Bible in a mode that’s appropriate for its intended genre. But frustratingly, this book is only a baby step and is disappointingly constrained, for those of his readers who already agree with him that obviously the Bible is written by writers who are thoroughly routinely familiar with accessing the mystic altered state and who write for such audience, with everyone understanding per the social and cultural context Pilch keeps pointing out, that this is not literalist writing, in the Bible, but mystic altered-state metaphors in support of social and political purposes in conjunction with purely mystical enlightenment purposes.

Pilch is too strenuously arguing against the most unimaginative, slow, conservative writers, who only think, genre-inappropriately, in terms of the ordinary state of consciousness and to whom “the Holy Spirit” is an empty phrase; he should put half his attention on pleasing the ahistoricist readers and the entheogen readers, which are large audiences interested in taking Pilch’s direction to a coherent completion.

Pilch ideally should cover entheogens in the Bible and in religious experiencing, because many readers and writers are very interested in entheogens. For the intense mystic altered state in the Bible and its sociocultural context of Antiquity, see The Antipodes of the Mind: Charting the Phenomenology of the Ayahuasca Experience; Gnostic Visions: Uncovering the Greatest Secret of the Ancient World; Magic Mushrooms in Religion and Alchemy; Entheogens, Myth, and Human Consciousness, and entheogen history books linked to those. I also recommend From Symposium to Eucharist: The Banquet in the Early Christian World.

— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 6255 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 05/01/2013
Subject: Re: Bk: Flights of Soul: Bib Visions, Heav Journeys, Pk Exper’s (Pil
Before John Pilch, no Christian scholarly books discussed altered states as such — or only a few. I have a perfectly low opinion of the output of the guild of Christian scholars: they don’t know anything that’s important. Pilch points in the right direction, which almost no one else does within the guild of Christian scholars. He is one of few pointing in the right direction. His direction is correct, he needs to go all the way and not only half way. If you are going to cover altered states, then cover altered states — that argument assigns the book 2.5 stars of 5, since the author goes half way towards his implied promise of what the book is going to cover. By that measure, his book is 50% false advertising.

Without Pilch, the glass was all-empty, held by the guild of scholars of early Christianity. With Pilch, the glass is now half-empty. That’s less horrible of a misunderstanding than before; that’s a relative halfway to sanity position Pilch brings, from the land of the outsiders who cannot understand This Parable of Mark 4:12 which stands for all parable, that is, analogies describing the entheogen-induced mystic altered state, of loose mental-construct binding.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+4&version=NIV

Jesus taught them many things by parables. “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.” The Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables. Jesus answered: “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that “They may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and their sins should be forgiven them,” as it says in the Old Testament at Isaiah 6:9,10.” Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable? The farmer sows the word. Some people are like seed sown along the path, or on rocky places, or among thorns. Other people are like seed sown on good soil, who hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop a hundred times what was sown.”


A different philosophy of granting praise or recommendations of books in a field is: how does the book compare to other books in that field? Given that most books by the guild of Christian writers are completely literalist mixed with supernaturalism and grounded only in familiarity with the ordinary state of consciousness, when one author wakes up we rightly recognize there is correct activity springing up from among the dead field of completely off-base scholarship.

The review I wrote is not entirely negative; I point out the lack of and need for covering the altered state. That’s what Pilch nominally does and nominally calls for, and he helps by citing books that cover drugs as an altered state method. He is very correct so far as he goes, and is ahead of the field (which isn’t saying much). That I consider mere Pilch to be greatly superior to the field of scholarship about Christian origins is a sign of how very low an opinion I have of the field; of how poor the quality level in the field is. In a community of blind men, the one-eyed man is the visionary king.


Deconstructing: analyzing the logic within a document to disprove the document, to show that the document contains self-contradiction. Poor arguments and assumptions are often filled with self-contradictions. I favor extreme positions as being more likely to be self-consistent. Compromising, middle-of-the-road positions, are usually the most self-contradictory. Wasson’s book SOMA became self-contradictory to the extreme, the more I extracted its logic into the light of day and revealed it as kettle logic. If you hold that the Bible is entirely literally true, that’s a kind of coherence. I hold the Bible is 100% purely fiction, which is a position with low chance of being self-contradictory or vacillating, or prevaricating. Pilch and a reviewer at Amazon both are self-contradictory:

Assertion 1: Altered states are common; there are some 25 kinds. People everywhere have altered states all the time during the modern era.
Assertion 2: The modern era misreads mythic altered state metaphor, because moderns don’t understand and recognize allusions to the altered state, because moderns don’t have the altered state, unlike the alien different culture and bio-psycho-social (Pilch asserts that term) mentality.

Pilch asserts 1 and 2 as a system. So does another reviewer. It’s clearly a system with a contradiction he needs to explain. The truth of the matter is that moderns access 29 generally weak altered states (via drumming, dancing, standing on your head, sneezing, dreaming, alcoholic inebriation (I forgot to ridicule Pilch’s equating of that with ‘altered state’), plus 1 intense altered state: entheogens.

The false, modern, literalist, ordinary-state misreading of the Bible is based on and depends on a fundamental premise: the altered state is out of reach. But surely they know that the U.S. tripped in the 60s on cannabis and lysergic saure di-ethyl-amide, which saved American Christianity from its predicted collapse in the 1960s. This is an impossible contradiction. How can people say that moderns have no religious altered state access, and at the same time, talk about religious experiencing through LSD? People don’t put the fragments together into a coherent system. Say you hate my ahistoricity, or hate my entheogen theory, but you cannot say that my thinking or position is waffling and self-contradictory, vacillating, prevaricating, that I am in denial of my own actual position.

I so deconstructed Schultes’ initial, 1976 edition of a top popular book, Hallucinogenic Plants, of which Plants of the Gods: Their Sacred, Healing, and Hallucinogenic Powers is the 3rd Edition.
Self-contrad’y entheogen bks Prohib’ist propaganda/taboo
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath/message/5886
I showed that Schultes’ moderate, self-effacing position is a bunch of self-contradictory nonsense and gibberish, like the argumentation I extracted out from the posturing and evasive, prevaricating dancing-about that Wasson does in SOMA. The entheogen-minimizing stance or posture, or the minimal/moderate stance, is incoherent and self-contradictory. The same type of argumentation is woven throughout all such books, and fundamentally does not hold water.

The hardest thing for the Maximal Entheogen Theory is to explain why there are only hundreds of mushrooms in Christian art and not printed books from 1500, “How to use magical plants to experience Christian metaphors.” Why do we only find mushrooms on church doors, but not discussions of eating scrolls in the scriptures (Ezekiel, Revelation) spelled out explicitly as mushrooms? Why do we only find 50 books on drugs in the newage theosophy bookstore, and 50 chapters, per Thomas Roberts, and a Consciousness Studies section of the bookstore, but not usually a Psychoactive Drugs section? Why do pagan books — that we have — from Antiquity only have some discussions of mushrooms and visionary plants, but per Andy Letcher, we don’t have many explicit trip reports labelled as such?

The paradigm provides the answer, as always: the answer must be various types of censoring often occurring: often self-censoring, often external censoring after the writing, self-censoring by tradition. There is a long history of entheogen use and of some explicit writing and depictions, and some conceal-then-reveal, secret-then-not, coverage. Mystics perpetually rediscover the plants, and the allusions to them, and the explicit depictions of the plants, which together forms the ongoing universal tradition of entheogen mystics rediscovering and communicating and selectively propagating the memes to this extent, together with outsiders and with Catholic-type profiteers who understand the Eucharist and give it and the placebo to insiders and outsiders. There is this balance.

It doesn’t go, as Carl “Secret” Ruck would have it, or worse, as McKenna misportrays it, all the way to the extreme: “The big, bad, all-powerful and omnipotent Catholic Church completely eliminated visionary plants for two *thousand*, long years! Everyone was helplessly prevented from any knowledge. That is: I, McKenna, assert that our religion and culture have had never had entheogens.” What a terrible, false, self-defeating, disastrous strategic position! McKenna and that minimal-entheogen assumption has royally screwed and denied the modern potential connection with the great tradition of using visionary plants. Neither has the use of visionary plants become fully out in the open and explicit in our historical mainstream cultures.

With Eliade, we even denied that real Shamans historically used visionary plants — Wasson reveals the baselessness of Eliade there, and then Wasson turns right around and does exactly the same thing, the same fallacy, that he just exposed Eliade doing: Wasson denies — in a vague, evasive, indirect, manipulative way so as to avoid directly raising the question — that our Greek, Roman, Jewish, and Christian cultural history includes any use of visionary plants. Schultes, same — because these modern Western white guy scholars are all spouting the same false paradigm.

Once you deconstruct one of them, exposing him — as Wasson does easily to Eliade — you are able to similarly expose the whole lot of them as parroting a baseless heap of a non-system, a kettle-logic paradigm that is inherently self-contradictory, waffling, evasive, manipulative, dishonest, indirect, vague, and ready to throw up our arms better to say “We just can’t understand their alien minds, we are too superior” rather than accept the asking of the questions such as:

To what extent were visionary plants used in Greek, Roman, Jewish, and Christian cultural history?
Surely visionary plants make more sense than “ancients were very impressed by dramatized eating and drinking”.
Surely visionary plants were not used by one or two but many religionists ongoing throughout our own history just like every Other culture we deign to investigate.
Surely it is better to legalize than demonize and prohibit.

If Ruck is addicted to the ‘secret’ premise even though it harms drug legalization, I counter that the correct premise is ‘secret-then-revealed’. Ruck is contradictory: *everyone* used entheogens, all over history, and, entheogen use was secret. You can’t combine those two premises; the system self-deconstructs — unless you have a chapter explaining how those two mutually contradictory premises fit together, which Ruck doesn’t. Modern and minimal entheogen scholars are consistently self-contradictory. Letcher’s book doesn’t even have a defined point or position; it’s a bunch of dismissive posturing without the guts to commit to any defined, specific position.

It’s impossible to refute Letcher’s position, or Schultes’ 1976 argument, or Wasson, because these poseurs, these dancing posturers, evade defining and committing to a specifiable, summarizable position, and when you pin them down and extract by force deducing their implied, implicate position, and drag it into the light of explicit argumentation, it is always plainly self-contradictory. This hidden self-contradictory deconstructive potential is standard practice for the entheogen-minimizing position, unlike for the maximal position.

This malformed thinking is found in various forms in Eliade, Wasson, McKenna, Ruck, Schultes, 1960s writers about the “new discovery” of psychedelics, as a “shortcut” to the “traditional” methods — which were silently left undefined as if those supposed known methods were defined and specified. How the meme and tradition of entheogen use throughout history was sustained and propagated, is slightly complex, not an all-or-nothing story. Entheogens weren’t entirely explicit and public, usually, nor super secret known only to a restricted few groups (as Ruck proves): monks, priests, magicians, midwives, poets, musicians, working girls, tavernkeepers, servant slaves, the aristocracy, fairytale tellers, puppeteers, playwrights, literature writers, and folk peasants, and the secret guild of street sweepers.

The maximal theory doesn’t assert that everyone explicitly discussed and wrote about initiation and the particular plants in mixed wine all the time. There is more than enough evidence, even if there aren’t many explicit passages in our available ancient writings we’ve found yet since we had the brilliant idea of looking for it 10 minutes ago (which is about the length of time Letcher spent doing his homework for his book Shroom).

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com, January 4, 2013
Group: egodeath Message: 6256 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 05/01/2013
Subject: Re: Metaphor: Paul’s weakness, thorn in flesh
Mr. Historical Saint Paul said:

I have had visions and revelations of the Lord, from the Lord.

Lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me *a thorn in the flesh*, *the messenger of Satan* to buffet me. To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.

Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.

The Lord said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20cor%2012:1-9
____________________

The half-enlightened scholar of Christian origins, John Pilch, writes:

“Paul identified Satan as the one who was responsible for some unknown personal physical problem (2 Cor 12:7).”

Pilch leaps into literalistic, self-sure, uncritical reading mode. By damn, if the scriptures have the word ‘flesh’, then it’s a given fact that Paul was talking about a literally physical bodily problem with his flesh. Never mind that these are entirely fictional writings that are driven my analogy describing the mystic altered state — forget that. This text, about a vision of Christ, says ‘flesh’ therefore we have no reason to doubt that Paul is talking about his literal flesh.

See the characteristic self-contradiction of the chronic outsider’s reading? Pilch asserts that vision talk in the New Testament is after-the-fact description of an altered state experience. But in the same book, Pilch asserts explicitly that the ‘flesh’ passage is about some “personal physical problem”. But using Pilch’s own argument against his assertion, using his text to deconstruct itself, we must consider whether every verse spoken by Paul is every bit as much a description of altered state experiencing, including the word ‘flesh’.

I doubt that “flesh” means literal flesh. People read religious mythic writing far, far too literally. Per a Gnostic reading, “flesh” coherently refers to the part of me and my mind, my thinking, that is within the Heimarmene-ruled block universe, the Fated cosmos. Then the thorn in the flesh is a message about fatedness and personal noncontrol with respect to fatedness.

Satan is the demiurge, the creator god, who created your pre-existing worldline that controls your thinking. Your fixed worldline rail forces you to have thoughts, and is unchangeable by your power of control. As a local personal control agent, control occurs in your mind, but you are absolutely powerless to change or create your near-future worldline. To the extent that you believe the block universe idea, sensation, and perception, in the loose cognitive state, you must believe that you have zero control-power of the type that can fight against your near-future worldline, because that very worldline is by definition and by perception, the very root and source of your control power.

The only rational possible coherent stance toward your near-future worldline which the demiurgic creator of the spacetime block forces upon you, is the stance of submission to the point of you disappearing, vanishing, as that type of control-agent which fancies and imagines, in delusion, that it could possibly win in a battle against its own worldline, as if a shadow might conquer the sun. You have control of a type, but not that type. You control your mind, but you don’t control the worldline rail that forces your mind to think what it is destined to think: you will control your mind strictly the way that the rail forces you to control your mind.

‘Satan’ is a variable pointer. In a two level system, the deluded egoic animal mind is Satan, and awakening to fatedness is angelic. When going beyond and outside fatedness, ‘Satan’ is equated with fatedness and the goal of the game then for the Gnostic Paul is to escape the control of Fatedness (Satan) and be pulled up by the Good God who resides and rules (controls) outside the fate-ruled cosmos that the creator, Satan, created.

I also take issue with Pilch’s phrase, that Paul “identified Satan as the one who was responsible for” the thorn in the flesh. What does Paul say, as a matter of exact historical fact? He doesn’t say “Satan is responsible for the thorn in my flesh.” Paul rather says: “a thorn in the/my flesh, the/a *messenger of Satan*”. Thus Paul actually says, against Pilch:

‘thorn in flesh’ = ‘messenger of Satan’

Mythemes mean Cybernetics, Heimarmene, Dissociation. Per Douglas Hofstadter, apply this Diamond Hammer of Interpretation:

How is ‘thorn in flesh’ analogous to Cybernetics, Heimarmene, Dissociation?

How is ‘messenger of Satan’ analogous to Cybernetics, Heimarmene, Dissociation?

In terms of Cybernetics, Heimarmene, Dissociation, how is ‘thorn is flesh’ analogous to ‘messenger of Satan’?

We know from Gnostic exegesis such as Elaine Pagels: flesh = Fatedness = Satan = creator = body below the head.

What is Satan’s message? What is Hermes’/Mercury’s message? What is the angel’s message? The message in myth is always Cybernetics, Heimarmene, Dissociation:

Paul *pleads* to take away the thorn. In loose cog, the advanced or beyond-advanced loose cog initiate, who is in a position to brag, the person who has the most experience in the world, who is an expert, the leader, still finds that he is subject to suffering the pain, that never is shaken off, never gotten rid of, the bothersome wounding thorn, an alien source of problem and dis-ease, a suffering, a blemish, which is something that prevents bragging, makes it impossible to brag. If only I could permanently get rid of this thing, then I would be able to brag, of what unlimited visions I have.

This thing endangers me, when I have it, I plead with God *again*, find myself in a state of wretched pleading again, desperation again; again Satan the ruler of Fatedness, the creator of my worldline, kills me with this humiliating defect, source of grief, this flaw, this imperfection. The thorn in the flesh that’s a message about fatedness, about subjection to fatedness, is a limiter and keeps the mind in this state of humiliating being forced to plead with the high God to remove this source of limitation, humiliation, this thing that defeats my desire to have unlimited visions.

The thorn in the flesh, message of fatedness, is the ability to take a stance against my own worldline and be thrown into a panic; we remain in a state of being threatened, a state of vulnerability, of fatedness taunting our aspirations to take full control without vulnerability and limitation. The mind remembers its horrific vulnerability to panic and pleading, vulnerable to the threat of a general something like a psychotic loss of control or a fear of being mentally forced to violate one’s intention, the mind is bent or reminded that it can be bent and forced against its own control power; the mind of the personal control agent — even with advanced Transcendent Knowledge — is reminded that it can be threatened with a kind of forced, overpowered loss of control.

If one’s fated worldline contains some fated thoughts the mind doesn’t want, still the mind will be forced to want to violate its wants. This control vortex capability also serves as part of the ladder to heaven, to the loosecog mental model. The mind can establish a good relationship with this message and reminder of the helpless vulnerability to fatedness, the thorn in the flesh that the mind pleads with God to remove.

Maybe we never need fear loss of control or suchlike in the loosecog state. But there is no evidence that the advanced mystic is immune to fear and trembling, threat, vulnerable to being proven again that one is in a state of helpless vulnerability and the mind might be forced by fatedness to think anything, chaos, control violation, and there is nothing by definition the mind could do *if* that is destined. We fear it is destined, some kind of loss of personal control, but we don’t know; we must acknowledge that it is possible in theory for the mind to construct some control-loss or control-violation scenario, that that might be in store, and yet we must trust nevertheless the worldline given us like Job must praise and acknowledge God’s power even while God wrecks his life.

Superior braggarts affirm they are no longer vulnerable to the threat of some control violation — and we rather expect them to experience then that reminder of who is not in charge, of who pushes who around inside the careenium. The tough confident guy is reminded that his power can be forced against him at the whim of the worldline; he too is stuck with the slave-like control device, the thorn in his flesh that can still always terrify and remind him of his situation. We cannot get rid of the vulnerability to being threatened to have our mind turned against itself by the overpowering force of the fatedness worldline and its creator: demiurge, Satan, the flesh, the block universe.

As long as you are a personal control system, you are subject to and vulnerable to being reminded that at the whim of the worldline, your mind could be made to, in a loosecog time-slice, violate its cross-time control intentions. Your mind can always be possessed and reminded of its slavelike vulnerability to be forced to violate intention, by having your intention overridden by the source of your thoughts: your fated worldline. This is not merely reasoned, but is experienced unavoidably, vividly, by threat and panic. The thorn in the flesh is a kind of vulnerability to panic attack in the loosecog state, leading to pleading to a transcendent God outside of fatedness, to remove that panic-attack vulnerability.

The collected data in religion, myth, Rock lyrics, and McKenna’s experience, and other trip reports by people of various cognitive styles, all indicates that we remain subject to loose cog panic attack. We have no evidence and basis on which to expect we will be free of this thorn in our flesh. It is pure wishful speculation that the Cognitive Scientists of the future will be immune to panic attack; they might still say after 50 years of studying my Egodeath theory, “I wanna be sedated”, with CPZ on hand, and using short-lasting psychedelics (loosecog agents; cognitive loosening agents) such as 4-HO-DiPT or other minor pleasant safe casual mild nice psychoactives such as Salvia and DMT or 5-MeO-DMT so that nothing can go worng and lead to panic attack ever again.

No more pleading to God to remove the thorn in our flesh, so, now we can brag about our unlimited visions! I have grabbed the helm and taken over control of my own near-future worldline, my personal control power is that clever and effective, powerful and strong you could say. Look out fatedness, I pluck out the thorn forever, and have done away with Satan the demiurgic Creator of the fate-ruled realm of flesh, now I have become invisible and powerless and escaped into the realm of psyche beyond the sphere of the fixed stars, I am born outside of the rock/marble block. I am a vein in the block of marble who has by miracle wiggled free and now runs around outside the marble block, as Jesus stands on the X-crossed gates of hell with X-positioned snake heads sticking out under the gates.

I have overpowered the creator of fatedness and taken control of my worldline, creating my own future from among the cybernetic possibility branches. That’s what we aspire to, in pleading to be free from the thorn in the flesh. Surely modern cognitive science will remove this vulnerability to panic attack, without the crutch of CPZ, Thorazine: we need instant stupidity on tap.

Thus there will be a purpose still for 20th Century scholarly books about Christian origins: when you become too smart and realize you are subject to control-psychosis or being overpowered by Mithras and terrorized, simply read a book of clueless scholarship about Christian origins, and your mind will become so dulled and confused, the inspirational panic attack will immediately subside like Jesus’ faith instantly calming the waves of the sudden sea-storm.

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com, January 4, 2013
Copyright (C) 2013 Michael S. Hoffman, http://www.egodeath.com All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 6257 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 05/01/2013
Subject: Re: Metaphor: Paul’s weakness, thorn in flesh
these are entirely fictional writings that are driven [by] analogy describing the mystic altered state
Group: egodeath Message: 6258 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 05/01/2013
Subject: Re: Sitting, standing, riding, carried, ferried, walking
Limping, wounded hip, limping king, wound in the side: Jacob, ‘the liar’, wrestled with the angel/god/man all night, and would not let the angel go until the angel blessed him. The angel blessed Jacob — Jacob became God-conformant, divine-approved, and the angel gave him the new name, Israel, which we receive, and the angel wounded Jacob’s hip; our hip is wounded when our mind becomes divine-conformant and God-approved.

Hip is leg is that which we depend on to uphold our power. My personal control power is supported by my legs at the hip. A wounding of my hip is a constraint that’s part of enlightenment, a constraint and limitation about my personal control power. To know God or the divine is to understand the limitation of personal control power. I have power to control my thinking in a limited constrained way, a limping and wounded control. Before enlightenment, I was not aware clearly or coherently of this limiting constraint and vulnerability in my personal control power.

When I gained the understanding of my inherent kind of constraint on my personal control power, and my weakness and infirmity and vulnerability, my Achilles’ Heel which supports my power, my mental model of personal control power gains a wound, it takes now into account my vulnerability and weakness and potential control-instability. I received a change of my name from Jacob the Liar, to Israel, and became aware of my Achilles’ Hip, the weak control subject to instability, on which my control power is supported. My control instability is my wound that is my passageway to heaven.

Wounded Jesus is the ladder on which we are carried transported up to heaven.

My Achilles’ Leg vulnerability is my passageway through which I received my new name, Israel, and put away the childish lie, Jacob, the lie of simple autonomous control power where I have simple control power that depends on myself where I stand on my own two feet, but in rock relief carvings, the little self and the slave who serves the mushroom wine stands on his own two feet, while the enlightened banqueter and king sits supported by the marble stone rock banqueting bench or throne of rock or donkey or horse or rides carried on Dionysus’ panther.

Captured slaves are humiliated by being made to walk falsely on their own legs under their own power while in chains in the triumphal victory procession, while the god or god-given ruler is carried, truly, not under their own power, sitting still, unmoving, like a sacred statue.

— Michael Hoffman, January 5, 2013, original research findings based on theory-development since 1985.
Copyright (C) 2013 Michael S. Hoffman, http://www.egodeath.com All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 6259 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 06/01/2013
Subject: Re: First drafts of the Theory in 1988
The following sections (Principles) came into my October 19, 1988 draft, after a September draft. These show that I gained a solid, articulate grasp around that point in time, of the control instability vortex, and the difficulty of piecemeal incrementally strategically reconfiguring and destabilizing the personal control system while having to stay safe and stable. These are a few selected sentences from the sections. The content in this draft is shockingly advanced, conceptually complete with closure, and rock-solid; it was 50 years ahead of its time in 1988 and remains 50 years ahead of its time in 2013.

To preserve the historical accuracy of these condensed excerpts, [square brackets] indicate major insertions of 2013. Otherwise, my 2013 additions, which are not indicated, are single-word. I here remain faithful to the draft but I do condense and clarify the draft wording slightly, where necessary for flow and comprehensibility.

There are also analogies of ‘contamination’ and ‘plague’ and ark of the covenant, which I rediscovered later, having forgotten that I had those ideas in 1988. My university and classmates around that time were involved in the adventures of Indiana Jones. I’m constantly forgetting and rediscovering as though new, ideas within this domain. Forgetting mental connections remains a problem, in gaining transcendent knowledge or knowledge in any field, like you could learn a lot of electric guitar and then have to re-learn and re-practice it. This is one reason why no matter how advanced your knowledge of my Egodeath theory is, all indications are that you remain constitutionally susceptible to pride and humiliation, wrathful reminder of vulnerability to your own control-instability potential.

By October 1988, my draft of the Theory article contained the core of the 2013 ideas, already essentially fully developed and already partly applied to religious myth at that time, during the 3 years since October 1985. By October 1988, the Egodeath theory was born fully formed seemingly at a point in time, like Athena’s birth, because the loosecog phenomena innately fit together into a coherent system, with consistent phenomena noted by sustained intensive thorough investigation.

From my October 19, 1988 draft titled:

Introduction to a New Conceptual System of Ego Transcendence

with a cover page added soon after, showing the article title instead as:

The Theory of Ego Transcendence

I decided: forget the transient stupid, passing, clueless misconception of ego transcendence that the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology happened to have in the passing dark ages of the 1980s. Mine is *the* theory, of all time, not merely “the new” theory of the day relative to 1988. Later, as an improving pendulum-swing, I added the qualifier:

The Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence

which means, as opposed to the 1988 Journal of Transpersonal Psychology’s theory of what ego transcendence is about and amounts to, which is a vague oneness unity consciousness model. My theory, in contrast, is centered around the dynamics and mental model of personal self-control cybernetics. It is better to be specific, ‘Cybernetic’, rather than dated and relevant to a point in time, ‘New’. I realized that my theory won’t be “new” for long; it would be like Einstein titling a 1905 article as “The New Model of Spacetime”, 83 years ago. The title “The Theory of Ego Transcendence” suffers from being vague, like “Transcendent Knowledge”. Now I could clarify further as “The Cybernetics/Eternalism/Loose-Cognition Theory of Ego Transcendence”.
_____________________

From my October 19, 1988 article draft, “Introduction to a New Conceptual System of Ego Transcendence”.

Principle 14: Intention

There are virtually potential futures, but only a single actually potential future. Thus where a mental system has an intention-set, this intention-set was part of the single-possibility actual ground of being, and arose as such, though the style of its arising may have been as an original product of a virtual ego conceived as a First Cause, or homunculus. If the issue is to keep some intended control, the difficulty of keeping control is none other than the difficulty of keeping the intention to keep control. And there is no way to secure the intention to keep control. Upon grasping this, it makes sense to pray to God that the ground of existence is such that the intention to control is to happen.

What I will (regarding my intention) will happen, but I can’t ultimately control what I will will. Control is always limited to its own level. There is always a level above the control level in question, which controls the control; or, which controls my intention.


Principle 15: The control vortex, the timed trap of revelation, and the wall of insanity

The advanced mind which develops transcendent knowledge must walk along the border of genius and insanity. He has the genius to dismantle his sanity, the keys to his own self-annihilation. Of course this situation is indeterminate and unstable, and any egoic functioning would dictate life and death wariness of this realm of forbidden knowledge. This knowledge is like the ark of the covenant. At this point in development of knowledge and intelligence, is it first conceived that too much truth can be detrimental, due to its destabilization attributes. It is very likely many minds have understood or at least grasp this momentarily, but to do so is true ego death, and panic might be inevitable along with the terrified resealing of Pandora’s box or the resealing of the seven seals.

The virtual ego system is both necessary for life and also incompatible with truth, so that momentary correct indexing (comprehension of connected ideas) in the terrible awe of the presence of God is the best that a mind can do, and the rest of the time, the mind must for its very life, use egoic indexing. If a mind continued to grasp transcendent indexing, it would risk going insane. The test of revelation: there are filters of insanity and tabooness and control discomfort which cause any mind flirting with correct revelation to contract again into egoic functioning. The revealing, heroic, Michaelian, Satan-slaying mind must fight the dragon or dragons of egoic indexing and win, somehow overcoming the wall of insanity which protects the group mind’s immersion in epistemological error.

This mind must be able to draw upon any field or approach to special knowledge in order to keep walking the line of insanity/genius until the puzzle is solved, instead of going insane and failing to crystallize and retain understanding and development of it. At first it will seem that correct indexing can only result in total disintegration of egoic functions, good and bad. But the mind must keep the assumption of sufficient integration as it harvests more and more correctly conceived principles.

One safety tool is controlled revelation, in which insights are seen grasped in limited number or depth from within the secure stability of egoic indexing. But this intention cannot be secured, especially in the loose mental functioning binding mode, and there is always the danger of compulsive realization of the disruptive potential, forming the negative recursion potential issue. All gaining of correct transcendent indexing implies (triggers, elicits, carries, or brings up) the problem of negative recursion potential.


Principle 16: Recursive assumption and negative recursion potential

Knowing “you can do whatever you imagine by positive thinking”, or positive recursive assumption, implies its complement. I’m only as stable as my preprogrammed assumption of stability that is fated on my near-future worldline. With advanced analysis in the loose mental functioning binding mode, this assumption is unhinged, and I realize that I could as validly assume I am to go insane. Here stabilization structure becomes vividly logically indeterminate, and a properly functioning egoic conceptual system will likely run for its egoic life, go sub-genius, seeking stupidity, to quit thinking with hyper-clarity, or back out by prayer — unless it realizes that, too, is a product of assumption.

If there’s auto-assumption, there will be auto-recontraction into the egoic conceptual system, producing stability of control due to egoic functioning. Will there be auto-assumption? That is logically indeterminate, if one starts with neutral assumption. So if a temporary genius considers the stability of his sanity with neutral assumptions, he concludes that the continuing presence of his sanity is logically recursively indeterminate. And in such manner is the negative recursion potential unavoidable, by correct neutral ultimate assumptions. A genius finds his actions depend on his original assumptions, which have no logical basis. Thus the sanity of the genius rests on nothing logically solid, only purely arbitrary assumptions which are logically indeterminate.

Truth presents a trans-rationality problem: the truth sets you too free, free to the point of disintegrative arbitrariness. The mind is then out of control, as it has accessed forbidden control. Its greatest hazard is its own potentials, as manifested in alcoholism. The mental functioning is stuck in a problem producing/transcending cybernetic locked loop, in which the egoic control system is perpetually challenging itself. If I should assume pure logical analysis, I could not stop myself from contamination by this mental plague, face to face with the fact of absolute destiny, even of the details of my choosing. [The various loosecog dangers are distinct: gaining full unguided unconstrained control brings a distinct danger; being subject to whatever is on one’s near-future worldline is a different distinct danger.]

There is no controller homunculus to constrain the control system; there is simply the control system itself. I cannot prevent myself from logical analysis, so if I should assume purely logical analysis, I could not stop myself from contamination by this mental dynamic. If I assume logical analysis to deal with this problem, I will find that there can be no logical solution, thus no solution in the logical sense. It is logically indeterminate whether I will be doomed to contact the detrimental knowledge or not, and I cannot in any way secure myself from the caustic concept. If fear occurs upon realizing this, it’s not correctly understood as fear of a specific event due to my loss of control, but the very state of loss of control. I’m afraid of the state of loss of control. The purpose of fear is to negatively control.

Egoic security requires faith in personal (egoic) will power. When will power is seen to be logically indeterminate and arbitrary, the control system becomes indeterminate, and fear of loss of control happens along with the (now endangered, in belief and actuality) state of presence of control In fact, there is always control, but theological indeterminacy and invalidity of control disrupts the integrity parameter of control. [There’s always personal control present, including during divine possession in loosecog, but the control parameters change.] There’s an ominous widening of the “virtual potentials” or “virtual future”. [The mind becomes more broadly capable during loosecog, able to envision great and psychotic-like capabilities and construct unconstrained harmful possibility scenarios.]

During tight mental functioning binding, the control area is sufficiently bounded and dynamically balanced that life is fairly stable. But loose mental functioning may allow this balance to fail, resulting in mis-control, a breakdown of the control system or at least a bypassing of secure control. Control is beyond control.


Principle 17: The analyzability of the middle realm of human experiencing apart from the low quantum and high ineffable realms

[Here I render loosecog cognitive phenomenology (the realm of religious mystic experiencing and insight) independent from all other fields: Relativity, QM, Wilber’s level 12 1/2 of transrational ineffability.]

If the arm of the virtual ego is illusory, it remains so regardless of whether consciousness is a determining factor of quantum level measurements, and regardless of the ultimate high ineffable level of the ground of being.

— Michael Hoffman, January 5, 2013, original research findings based on theory-development since 1985.
Copyright (C) 1988, 2013 Michael S. Hoffman, http://www.egodeath.com All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 6260 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 06/01/2013
Subject: Re: First drafts of the Theory in 1988
Typo correction; the 1988 draft correctly reads ‘parameters’ in the plural:

In fact, there is always control, but theological indeterminacy and invalidity of control disrupts the integrity parameters of control.
Group: egodeath Message: 6261 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 06/01/2013
Subject: Re: Hypotheses for objections, closure, safety
The actual correct lyric is definitive:
I was going insane
not merely the question, “was I going insane?”


Every cognitive phenomena type in the loose cognitive state brings distinctive dangers — but all of those distinctive dangers fit together, or at least are compatible. For example:

o The feeling of deja vu is dangerous.

o The seeing/feeling/thinking that one’s intentions that are sitting on the near-future worldline, along which the mind is being unstoppably, unavoidably moved forward, is dangerous.

o Personal control power, that escapes any attempt, on the part of the mind, to constrain it, is dangerous.

o Perceiving that the mind’s thoughts arise from outside of the domain of practical personal control power is dangerous.

o The loosened mind ranges over its entire domain of possible thoughts which the mind is capable of constructing, no longer held within narrow unimaginative ruts.

o The mind transcending its egoic control, logically must mean deliberately demonstrating violating one’s former cross-time restrictions and safely limited thinking, including deliberately overriding the usual, egoic, cross-time intention to retain sanity, safety, control, and a viable future. The transpersonal mind deliberately and formally (sacrificially) mortifies the egoic control system, to transcend it and be born out from it, to break out of that shell or prison of restraints and limitations.

o And other experiential cognitive phenomena of the loosecog state and the concomitant aspects of danger that each of those phenomena bring.


The combined idea and experience and perception, is dangerous, the divine danger factors all working and fitting together as a system:

o I strongly feel like I remember being here in this thought-sequence; and in conjunction with that,

o I see, feel, and perceive that my unknown intentions are sitting on the near-future worldline, along which my mind is being unstoppably, unavoidably moved forward; and in conjunction with that,

o I experience that my personal control power escapes any attempt, on my part, to constrain it; and in conjunction with that,

o I perceive that my mind’s thoughts arise from beyond and outside of the domain of my practical personal control power; and in conjunction with that,

o My loosened mind ranges over its entire domain of possible thoughts which my mind is capable of constructing, no longer held within narrow unimaginative ruts; and in conjunction with that,

o I feel like I’m at the Origin remembering that transcending my mind and transcending my control must mean deliberately demonstrating violating my former cross-time restrictions and safely limited thinking, including deliberately overriding my mind’s usual, egoic, cross-time intention to retain sanity, safety, control, and a viable future. My mind here deliberately and formally (sacrificially) mortifies its egoic control system, to transcend it and be born out from it, to break out of that shell or prison of restraints and limitations; and in conjunction with that,

o Other experiential cognitive phenomena of the loosecog state and the concomitant aspects of danger that each of those phenomena bring.


The combined idea and experience and perception, is dangerous, the divine danger factors all working and fitting together as a system:

o You strongly feel like you remember being here in this thought-sequence; and in conjunction with that,

o You see, feel, and perceive that your unknown intentions are sitting on the near-future worldline, along which your mind is being unstoppably, unavoidably moved forward; and in conjunction with that,

o You experience that your personal control power escapes any attempt, on your part, to constrain it; and in conjunction with that,

o You perceive that your mind’s thoughts arise from beyond and outside of the domain of your practical personal control power; and in conjunction with that,

o Your loosened mind ranges over its entire domain of possible thoughts which your mind is capable of constructing, no longer held within narrow unimaginative ruts; and in conjunction with that,

o You feel like you’re at the Origin remembering that transcending your control must mean deliberately demonstrating violating my former cross-time restrictions and safely limited thinking, including deliberately overriding your mind’s usual, egoic, cross-time intention to retain sanity, safety, control, and a viable future. Your mind here deliberately and formally (sacrificially) mortifies its egoic control system, to transcend it and be born out from it, to break out of that shell or prison of restraints and limitations; and in conjunction with that,

o Other experiential cognitive phenomena of the loosecog state and the concomitant aspects of danger that each of those phenomena bring.


Thus I have explained how the danger is systemically compelling, and a matter not only of thinking, but also of perception and sensation, all fitting together and working together, even though you’d think that you can dismiss deja vu as vulgar superstition and you can dismiss or wave-aside block-universe fatedness of your worldline, containing possibly dangerous thoughts you cannot avoid, as mere metaphysical conjecture: “Eternalism and no-free-will are mere conjecture, carrying no compelling force of certainty.” Every danger has a solution, such as prayer and trust. Yet the mind habitually is shaped to take an egoic stance of fascination and recoil upon perceiving this combination of dangers, along with the strong sense of profound ultimate value and meaningfulness.

Therefore we can take a positive attitude toward this system of mutually supporting dangers, instead of only trying to dismiss and prevent them and hold up a shield to protect the mind from seeing — from thinking — them. These dangers are also at the same time, the stairway to heaven. The wounded-controller vision, the self-control seizure potential and capability of the mind, the thorn in the flesh we plead to be removed from our mind, is the sacrifice act, that is the vehicle and ladder and doorway, the means by which the mind is pulled into the transcendent mental model mode and state: the divine whirlwind chariot on which God carries us up descending to his throne at the source of the threatening and enlightening fountain of thoughts behind the torn veil behind the personal control thinking in the mind.

— Michael Hoffman, January 6, 2013, original research findings based on theory-development since 1985.
Copyright (C) 2013 Michael S. Hoffman, http://www.egodeath.com All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 6262 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 06/01/2013
Subject: Re: Bk: Flights of Soul: Bib Visions, Heav Journeys, Pk Exper’s (Pil
It’s not John Pilch’s fault that there is, in some ways, a full-on censorship against the entheogen explanation of the intense mystic altered state in Christian origins. Similarly, it’s not Andy Letcher’s fault that the Prohibition Press eagerly lapped up his incoherent, garbled and generally anti-drug-sounding book. If John Pilch wrote the truth, if Andy Letcher wrote the truth, his publisher (Prohibition Press) would’ve rejected the book. It’s not Pilch’s or Letcher’s fault singlehandedly. Individual gays were not to blame for staying closeted; yet, it was necessary for them in general, as a large group, to each come out of the closet.

Through my review, I have helped Pilch to write what he and everyone wants to write. All individual human beings want Pilch’s book to cover entheogens. But the Establishment including everyone who wants to be seen as conformant with the Establishment officially wants to censor-out entheogens from the story of our religion and cultural background. This desire and stance and expectation and paradigm needs to be shattered. I have helped Pilch complete his book, by saying what he cannot say. Who will be the one to break the silence? The simulated, robotic cockroach ventures into the light first, and only then, the real cockroaches are persuaded to come out into the light and write what they already secretly believe.

Everyone is stuck pretending to believe in various literalist readings of the New Testament, and pretending to be anti-entheogen and even pretending that they never heard of entheogens or ahistoricity. Prohibition Press and the Official tale of our Matrix reality-tunnel is effectively censoring, or *was* effectively censoring the reality-tunnel, until we broke and shattered the lie.

My ahistoricist, maximal entheogen theory is already more popular than Jesus, though that fact is not officially acknowledged. Every statement that is permitted to be published against the Egodeath theory corresponds to a hundred thousand people agreeing, silently, with the Egodeath theory including that the Bible is 100% fictional and that Greek, Roman, Jewish, and Christian religion were always completely entheogen-centered.

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com, January 6, 2013
Group: egodeath Message: 6263 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 07/01/2013
Subject: Re: Hypotheses for objections, closure, safety
Yet another phenomenon of the loose cognitive state, which brings distinct dangers with it, is the feeling of unreality. Everything is known to awareness via mental constructs. This becomes explicitly clear in metaperception during the loose cognitive binding state. Your present body, your past and future self, other people, other bodies, all can be seen as a joke, a cartoon, not to be taken seriously; comical, ridiculous, absurd. This is a potentially dangerously aloof attitude.

Inappropriate affect, a psychotic-like randomness of emotions and attitudes, is another phenomenon that brings dangers and fits with the dangers of the other phenomena. Thoughts of harm or violating conventional intention to retain safety, sanity, a viable future, and control, can easily be considered a source of sarcastic humor and mockery, in the loose cognitive binding state.


Identifying these distinct dangers, and remembering how they fit together to form greater systemic danger, is a major step toward mapping and accurately modelling (describing) the loose cognitive state. This makes explicit what specifically the dangers are, and prevents forgetting some of them. Remember, you not only think such thoughts, you perceive these perspectives, and sense and feel these experiences. And remember, the danger of the loose cognitive binding state is not only presented by one of these phenomenological sources at a time, but by the general set and system of such altered state phenomena, arriving in groups, interlinked, mutually supporting.

Thus we can read the 2112 album image of the nude guy recoiling in apprehension of the red star in a circle, as the mind in loosecog encountering a set of 5 points or phenomena with 5 concomitant kinds of dangers each phenomenon or point brings, as an integrated system: a system of enlightenment and ultimate valuable meaningfulness interlinked with a system of dangers and threats.

o Thinking
o Feeling
o Perceiving
are interlocked, in loosecog.

o There are some 10 phenomena, in loosecog.
o Each phenomenon brings one or two distinct dangers.
o The phenomena link together, mutually supporting.
o The dangers and threats link together, mutually endangering and threatening the person and mind.

There are solutions for each danger, and the solutions interlock.

Thus we have:
o Modes of experience (thinking, feeling/sensing, perceiving)
o Cognitive phenomena
o Dangers or threats
o Solutions for safety and viable stability.

A preliminary step to providing maximum safety for Cognitive Scientists in the loosecog lab, is to accurately describe the dangers, and remind how they fit together compellingly, as I have done. It is too easy to forget that these dangers are many and compelling and they arrive and fit together mutually supporting and are *not* merely a matter of armchair thinking like speculative abstract philosophizing, but rather, full-bandwidth completely immersive experiencing. This is why the most advanced and keen-minded explorers have always continued to report that there is always remaining, with no end in sight, danger and vulnerability, that always continues to demand reverential respect and complete concern about danger and safety requiring spiritual armor.

Naturally the mind dreams of entering loosecog with complete assurance and zero chance of fear and trembling, threat, danger, having the mind compelled and enticed into threatening itself. Even the exercise of practicing threatening to violate or transcend one’s survival needs still affirms that there is danger, which never simply goes away, so far as everyone reports. It’s not a matter of eliminating danger, though we can frame it as controlling danger, managing danger, transcending danger; we never, it seems, reach a point where there simply is no danger. Danger remains, according to reports of leading explorers.

The end of the Bible has harmony, not to imply that the danger is no more. Whenever the mind enters a certain stance that it is innately configured to enter, the mind re-encounters or re-accesses or re-assembles once more, the danger dynamics. So we should see the climax analogy: the mind has the capability of bodily climax and the capability of cybernetic self-control danger climax; after perfecting the mind’s transcendent mental model, that danger capability remains. When the mind forgets this, and returns to the autonomous egoic mindset, the danger quickly presents itself as a reminder again, pushing the mind once more into remembering the need for the transcendent, reverent, trusting, non-autonomy stance.

— Michael Hoffman, January 6, 2013, original research findings based on theory-development since 1985.
Copyright (C) 2013 Michael S. Hoffman, http://www.egodeath.com All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 6264 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 07/01/2013
Subject: Re: Extreme Radical Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion
All entheogen authors & MAPS are complicit & false

Almost all of the famous entheogen authors & MAPS are complicit with Prohibition and with the entheogen-diminishing project, and are profoundly false, at the core, in their very starting assumptions that they play along with, especially their unstated assumptions. Beware of all entheogen scholars! Almost all of them are highly complicit and are pushing a false programme, serving to deny entheogens their central role in history and mystic experiencing. Their writings are hopelessly compromising and complicit with the phony official Matrix world of lies and dissembling and heavily biased misrepresentation of the truth about entheogens.

Even Grof is part of the entheogen-minimizing conspiracy, he is complicit and tainted in the official lie. We cannot trust Grof, McKenna, Walsh, Letcher, Wasson, Schultes. They are all complicit. Even Ruck has been significantly complicit in the official entheogen-diminishment conspiracy. We must throw in the trash this aspect and call them all on it, call b.s. on this broken thinking that the official story puts into the writings of these supposed entheogen advocates. Grof is as full of lies, distortion, incoherence, self-contradiction, censorship, and Prohibition-complicit prevarication, as anyone, and MAPS is complicit too: this article cites him:

“Grof [2001, LSD Psychotherapy, p. 270, pub. MAPS], the world’s most experienced psychedelic researcher, concluded that “at present after 30 years of discussion, the question of whether LSD and other psychedelics can induce generu9ine spiritual experiences is still open.” That’s false. The question is certainly not open. It is obvious and not difficult to be sure of, that plainly, it’s a given that psychedelics induce intense mystic and religious experiencing. Any child can tell you as much. There’s nothing unclear or hard to judge about this. The whole stance of this article, as if there’s any question on this matter, is phony and bunk. The very existence of this article is absurd, as if maybe psychedelics don’t induce mystic experiencing, as if it’s seriously possible to call that into question.

This entire genre of writing is absurd and complicit in Prohibition: it’s all nothing but a giant posturing, a presence, a big delegitimation project complicit with Prohibition Press, make-believe going along with the pretense that it’s uncertain whether psychedelics produce mystical experiencing. It’s like books doubting subjective conscious experiencing: you know immediately the book is hardly on the up-and-up.


The article “Entheogens: True or False?” by Roger Walsh, whose writings are used by John Pilch, is a central offender. It pretends and acts as if we know and understand how Christians accessed visionary experiencing, and that we know that they didn’t use drugs. This article *silently* takes it for granted, that Christian visionary experience was not drug-induced. As I have excelled at, I here apply my standard deconstruction technique to show the utter baselessness of the official, implicit tale of how religion works. I now assert that all mystic experiencing anyone has ever experienced or accessed was accessed via entheogens, and that’s what we must assume until proven otherwise.

This is no more unreasonable than the official story, which asserts with full uncritical confidence, taken as granted, that all mystic experiencing anyone has ever experienced or accessed was accessed via the fully understood usual methods other than entheogens, and that’s what we must assume until proven otherwise. I merely invert the official baseless assumption, and justify my move by the fact that non-drug attempts to access mystic experiencing normally fail and produce a weak travesty, make-believe mystic states, whereas it is an instantly verifiable fact that anyone can check, that if you use entheogens, you are guaranteed to get an intense mystic altered state, and, there exists much evidence once you bother to look for it, that visionary plants are completely common and normal and central in religious history.

I have a rock-solid base of experiential evidence and artifact evidence and written evidence to back up my assertion and my evidentially justified assumption that mystics normally and generally access their experiences via entheogens. The official opposite story is baseless, and vague, and evasive, unjustified, and lacking in evidence. The much stronger position is my position: mystics used entheogens unless proven otherwise in individual cases; the much weaker position is that mystics used various hardly specified methods though grudgingly the official position might admit an exception or two among heretics, such as later, degenerate shamans (as Eliade asserts).

There is a false, implicit theory buried in all entheogen-minimizing (which is to say, standard official worldview) scholarly writings. The work of the rational critic is to extract the vague, implicit picture hardly worth calling a “theory”, that is buried in all the official paradigm’s writings. Extract the vague, implicit “theory” or rather arm-waving set of notions, a non-theory of how mystics supposedly traditionally access mystic experiencing, pull that non-theory into the light of day, and show how the article contradicts itself to hold up its nonsense view.

Such writings pretend that the official view has a determinate theory, model, and explanation of how mystics access mysticism. But this article says “there has been no adequate theory of mystical states”, “there has been no theory of mystical states”, and “those who have had both [drug-induced and “contemplation”-induced mystic experiences] are obviously few and far between.” Part of the official view is that almost no one ever experiences mystic states, using “the traditional methods”.

The assertion that few people had traditional contemplation-induced mystic experiences and drug experiences is a covert indication of the badness of the official non-theory: the official theory can only be sustained by assuming there are practically no mystics (of the purported “traditional methods”) and, that very few people have drug-induced mystic experiences.

The official story upholds itself by preventing and dismissing all mystic experiencing, pushing mystic experiencing out of reach. The official story serves to push all mystic experiencing out of reach, so that the official story is not challenged by any actual evidence, but is purely a story, an ideological stance.

I am smashing the official bogus non-theory: there is no such thing as “traditional, contemplative practices”, there only exists in history entheogen use, entheogen-induced mysticism. The notion of “the traditional, non-drug contemplative practices” is nothing but an artificial construction by the official phony scholarship; it’s an invented chimera, an artifice, an illusory construct of writers.

The article mentions that even Buddha continued to meditate, showing that the purportedly traditional non-drug methods still require refreshing. The article there *assumes* silently and uncritically that the Buddha character is historical (not fictional) and that the Buddha character didn’t use entheogens. The article is inconsistent because it looks that the start of Buddhism in Buddha’s practice, but utterly fails, silently, to equivalent treat — as Pilch correctly does — visionary experience in the New Testament. Instead, the article props up the bogus official non-theory by equating “traditional mystic experiencing methods” strictly — again, silently, without attempted justification — with later Christian mystics, not visions in the Bible.

So Walsh’s sneaky, dishonest and incoherent article (all articles in the official paradigm are forced to be dishonest and incoherent this way) pretends as if (without drawing attention to this) the New Testament Christians sat around in zazen meditation, which is an absurd implication, once I drag it out into the light. Unlike Pilch, Walsh has no theory, not even a pretended theory, of how New Testament Christians got their visions.

Walsh mentions “the wine of Dionysus Eleutherios/Liberator” without comment, implying that this is mere alcohol rather than entheogen wine.

He delivers this false story, taking it all for granted: “in the West. For centuries psychedelics were all but unknown, until in the 1960s they came crashing into a culture utterly unprepared for them.” The entire article — and this entire genre of writing, by big-name entheogen authors — is a massive exercise in begging the question and taking it, falsely, silently, as granted that we know for a fact that mystics didn’t use entheogens.

That’s the mechanics of this bogus genre of writing. All the authors commit this same set of fallacies and *bad writing*, bad, lack of critical thinking, at the foundation, before they start writing. The same massive foundation of fallacious presumptions, always silent, underlies all articles and books in this genre. Beware this entire genre, beware *all* of these “leading” writers and “authorities on entheogens”! It is complicit, a project of robbing entheogens of their central credit in religious history.

This is sheer noxious bias by Walsh and all the rest of the complicit non-theorists, a massive specious begging-the-question, presumption, a huge false dichotomy that implies the opposite of the historical truth of the matter: “The contemplative’s mind may be prepared, but there is no guarantee whatsoever that the drug user’s is.


Entheogens: True or False?
Roger Walsh
http://www.transpersonalstudies.org/ImagesRepository/ijts/Downloads/Entheogens%20True%20or%20False.pdf

The following list of phrases is indicators, signs, bearers of a lie, constituting the specious, silently assumed, implicit non-theory according to the official entheogen-diminishing tale. I extracted this list from Walsh’s typically bad and Prohibition-complicit article. These phrases all are taken for granted by Walsh as being opposed to — that is, distinct from — psychedelic experiences; these are all silently assumed to be non-drug methods of accessing the intense mystic altered state.

genuine mystical
contemplative practices
genuine mystical experiences
genuine religious and mystical l experiences
genuine spiritual experiences
truly mystical
the experiences of genuine mystics
experiences hard-won by years of contemplative discipline
contemplatives
natural mystical states
drug experiences … their natural religious counterparts
natural mystical experiences
mystical experiences of mystics throughout the centuries
mystical rapture
genuine experiences
the contemplative should labor for decades for a sip of [such experiencing]
natural mystical states
natural mystical experiences
really genuine
meditation
a yogi might focus unwaveringly on the breath or a mantra
a Christian contemplative or bhakti yogi might cultivate the love of God
Buddhist vipassana and Taoist internal observation practitioners
religiously induced mystical experiences
mystical experiences
A contemplative might finally taste … mystical unity after years of cultivating qualities such as concentration, love, and compassion.
natural mysticism
spiritual practice
transformative disciplines
religious disciplines
practice … Zen … sit … zazen … seated meditation
satori requires … the purification of character … zazen
the method used … long-term practice
contemplative mysticism
The contemplative … may spend decades deliberately working to retrain habits along more spiritual lines.
the contemplative
spontaneous mystical experiences

Against Walsh and all the writers of his ilk — Schultes, etc.; who *isn’t* tainted and complicit? — I assert that historically, all these items are actually things that were done during the entheogen-induced altered state, by far more commonly than without entheogens. These are merely supplemental activities to do *during* the entheogen loosecog visionary state.

— Michael Hoffman, January 6, 2013, the definer and advocate of the Maximal Entheogen Theory of religion and culture, based on theory-development since 1985.
Copyright (C) 2013 Michael S. Hoffman, http://www.egodeath.com All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 6265 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 07/01/2013
Subject: Re: Extreme Radical Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion
Clarifications:

Grof is as full of lies, distortion, incoherence, self-contradiction, censorship, and Prohibition-complicit prevarication, as anyone, and MAPS is complicit too: Walsh’s article “Entheogens: True or False?” cites him:
“Grof [2001, LSD Psychotherapy, p. 270, pub. MAPS], the world’s most experienced psychedelic researcher, concluded that “at present after 30 years of discussion, the question of whether LSD and other psychedelics can induce genuine spiritual experiences is still open.”


The article is inconsistent because it looks [at] the start of Buddhism in Buddha’s practice, but utterly fails, silently, to equivalent[ly] treat — as Pilch correctly does — visionary experience in the New Testament.


[The following statement] is sheer noxious bias by Walsh, [like] all the rest of the complicit non-theorists, a massive specious begging-the-question, presumption, a huge false dichotomy that implies the opposite of the historical truth of the matter: “The contemplative’s mind may be prepared, but there is no guarantee whatsoever that the drug user’s is.”
________________

Philosophy of Science claims that the new theory is adopted after it is seen to have greater explanatory power than the old theory. I object that often, the old theory isn’t even a “theory” at all, whatsoever, but is merely a heap of notions and silent unconscious presumptions, implicit and contradictory.

— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 6266 From: michaelagryder Date: 07/01/2013
Subject: Re: Hypotheses for objections, closure, safety
What do you mean that the feeling of deja-vu is dangerous? I love reading your material, it is very dense.

I have had an interesting experience that fits right into the block determinism regarding the most intense deja-vu
I have ever experienced or even heard or read about.

I’d love to discuss it with you, if you’re interested.
Group: egodeath Message: 6267 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 08/01/2013
Subject: Re: Hypotheses for objections, closure, safety
Deja vu can be dangerous and transcendent in conjunction with other classic mystic state phenomena. Someone could gets the deja vu feeling and idea that’s convincing:

“I remember here is where I realized that for ingenious reasoning-chain xyz, the right moral obedient God-reverent thing I must do now to save and enlighten humanity is transgressive act T, which initiates the end of the world for our shared delusion regarding moral responsible agency. This looks psychotic but it’s actually transcendent and unavoidable; I remember putting these ideas together, deja vu helped me remember this glorious ego-transcending idea.”

Skewed thinking, malformed transcendence, can be dangerous, and even correct thinking might still be dangerous, as reports of explorers suggest.

Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 6268 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 08/01/2013
Subject: Passover blood of sacrifice protectively averts threat of control di
Passover blood of sacrifice protectively averts from threat of control disproof

Voice dictate

The Bible is all fictional intense mystic meaning stories interlinked

To avoid explaining blood is to completely fail to explain the Bible and major themes in world religion

the most important themes filled with transcendent meaning must include blood in terms of self control time the mystic state and metaphor

A explanation of the Bible and Greek and Roman religion and other blood thirsty mystic gods around the world in terms of decoding it into mystic experiencing in the peak state demands that we must have a theory of a vision of blood averting the wrath of God that would strike down our control power harmfully

I am the first one to have the explanatory theory linking blood averting danger and the phenomena of the loose cognitive binding state induced by entheogens

I explain the analogy how is mystic experiencing from entheogens like the threat of harm and death being turned away by affirming blood

how does affirming blood turn away the threat in the mystic altered state if you cannot explain that then you have no theory

I explain it I have the theory that works and satisfies providing completion and satisfaction and closure and transcendence of personal control power and demonstration of its limits that we want to know

there is Abraham and Isaac sacrificing the ram with a knife in place of Isaac from whom all of Israel descended and was dependent on

there is the Passover where the blood of the sacrificed lamb on the door prevented averted turned away the angel of death to enable the sacrificer to continue living into the promised land of Israel

there is Jesus celebrating the Passover with equivalent themes of giving his blood to avert wrath and enable lasting life in the kingdom of God

When you are in dire straits being threatened and excitedly pursuing the fascinating potential to transcend control to avert the wrath of God and make him change his mind because you realize that you have that God has decided to use you to demonstrate his power of making you go out of control and taking over your will and intention

you are made to see blood and you picture in your mind God providing some other mystic figure or animal that God in your mind will accept in your place as equivalent by picturing this blood given by God as sufficient in place of your blood that’s associated with your control breakdown the threat is averted and God sees the blood that he provided in the sacrifice idea and he sees that your mind acknowledges your dire need for and desire for transgression and self transcendence and self transgression of personal control power

picturing the sacrificial blood averts God’s decision which is your decision when your mind successfully attains to being possessed by God shaped thinking which satisfies and fulfills that minds transcendent desire for self transgression

God and your God shaped mind are fulfilled and satisfied and the wrath of your God possessed mind is averted and God changes his mind you change your mind and then are brought into the land of enlightenment Israel escaping from the threat of the angel of death in slavery in the land of Egypt while still not being harmed

your life continues now with enlightenment the wrath was full fulfilled and the desire to know our ability to transgress our control is fulfilled in the figure of blood while we are passed over the threat passes over

we are not literally demonstrating carrying out harm to ourselves though we instead envision and picture such as myth representations mentally picturing blood on the frame of the door of your room causes the angel of death to not harm your first born self-concept your egoic self is thus transgressed satisfyingly yet there is no harm done the threat which your mind discovers and threatens against its own ego like personal control power is both fulfilled and satisfied and demonstrated you as God thinking decide to violate personal control and cause blood in an enlightened transcending demonstration of understanding limitations of personal control and then you are made to picture the idea and myth realm of the ram or pagan pig sacrifice in your place and then you change your mind as God changes his mind and have averted his wrath as you avert your demonstration of self transgression of personal control power and you have satisfaction that you have intended death to your intention and yet lived without harm to enter the promised land

The mind searches its potential and discovers an ability to intend the transgression of intending in acknowledgment of the minds true control potentials and in acknowledgment of the vulnerability of practical personal control in relation to the uncontrollable source and factors in control that personal control secretly depends on

we were decided to be struck down yet that decision was the fulfilment of transcending personal control power and thinking so life continued sustained viable life now having also enlightenment but also having experienced desiring complete transcendence over your personal control system and willing against your will and satisfying and permitting acceptable changing your mind

you laid down your life so now are satisfied to take it up forever

you threatened and decided to end Isaac which is to end the entire Israel and that exercise of intending and obedience the metaphor of obedience satisfies and therefore averts

the important thing is to satisfy not only to avert wrath but to satisfy the logical requirement and coherent system systemically coherent requirement demanded in transcending personal control power and power claim to power

The goal of transcending personal control is not to avert not merely to be a wimp like prohibitionists not to merely avoid battle not merely stay safe and not merely continue meaningless life not merely to avoid loss of control that is not satisfying in fact that is definitely unsatisfying and the opposite of life

per Ken Wilber it is a death in life when one is stuck at a level of the atman project that one has outgrown and can no longer be satisfied when life fails to be fulfilling then when it is limited to mere safety and continuance mere sanity

we desire to have mystery religion mysterium tremendum the numinous acid rock electrifying control seizure and cancellation bringing amazing enlightenment threat rescue regeneration and completion of forcing the transformation of the mental model of self time and control

The mind is not satisfied with mere tame boring mundane life like a grade school student or worker done with learning but desires to have high experiencing and self transcendence of ourselves as agents who have control power or who are control power the wielding of control

life demands transcendence not mere safety not mere continuing life not near keeping control not merely staying sanity keeping sanity is not the main goal keeping control is not the main goal staying safe is not the main goal having a continued viable future is not the main goal

experiencing self transcendence and the power of the transcendent Creator over our mind is the goal safety is merely a practical requirement but transcending safety is a part of transcending the mind

This explains the theme of Jonah being disappointed Jonah tells the king of Nineveh 40 days and your kingdom will be overthrown but the entire city comically repents to the extreme immediately and God’s wrath is instantly averted

Jonah is mad because God promised to overthrow the Kingdom of men that that didn’t know its right hand from its left Jonah camped outside the city hoping for fireworks and destruction he was angry when God changed his mind

it had become very exciting the prospect of God’s wrath smiting nineveh as God intended God looked forward to smiting Minetta but John was angry at God for changing his mind and deciding not to smite the city kingdom of nineveh

you are Jonah you are God you are the king of Nineveh you as gods thinking decide you will overthrow your personal control power in the mystic state and you repent and change your intention and let your kingdom or control stability continue into the future instead

it is depressing after the excitement you have to back down and become boring and not smite your self to demonstrate control beyond control and a closure and completion of the self transcendence project that occupies your thinking in the peak state so it is a bummer and boring and depressing that you merely temporarily intended to demonstrate holy satisfying transcendent transgression against your personal control power and then boringly changed your intention and your wrath against your control was averted

That is the Egodeath theory and explanation of why blood figures in religious myth in blood sacrifice I explain it here the only compelling coherent explanation of this theme and its role in rescue and preservation of life in the problematized panic attack and rescue in the peak window of the advanced mystic altered state

how might envisioning blood of a sacrificed lamb or pig give you a feeling of protection in the intense mistake state of the loose cognitive binding

in the advanced peak loose cognitive state the mind clearly sees its vulnerability to recursive positive feedback envisioning control loss that it could quite well be fated that the mind unconstrained latches onto an idea in a positive feedback of reaching and successfully constructing a control state that is beyond practical control that the mind could make itself willing to violate itself

this is a capability and potential that the mind is capable of justifying when unconstrained

Blood represents a control instability transcendent self harm ability of the control system a self transgression capability of the personal control system

The fear of loss of control or entering an indeterminate unstable control state definitely implies all kinds of harm or violations of personal control constraints therefore it is quite logical to associate blood with such harm therefore solutions of meaning involvement sacrifice not of vegetables but blood which has a mental rescuing association that is adequate to the seriousness of the control violation

Tragedy and comedy comic relief inappropriate affect the loose mind mocks its own ability to threaten itself and be in fear and taunting itself at the same time religion is a mystic joke about bloody loss of control and how to intend it and transcend it and cancel to convert the wrathful satisfying God minded reference demonstration of obedience and transcending personal control in recognition of transcendence and transcending personal control and is part of a logical part of wanting to fully transcend and understand control just the same as if you create a virtual reality game the first thing anyone and everyone wants to do is break the game

the mind desires to break and play with its own personal control limitations and study and demonstrate transcending of control when you receive mental constructs as such in meta-perception it life becomes unreal like a comic strip or animated cartoon unbelievable like a virtual reality game but it is not hard to understand why the mind desires to transcend control envisioning blood just like so many people do in video games or wanting to drive through a wall within the video game or otherwise test the limits and demonstrate the limits of the game

it is no different at all in the video game of the loose cognitive state where the game is to play with the mechanism of personal control and study and break that just like fraternity hazing or military training breaks the old limitations and transcends who you were

therefore more idea development is actually needed here not to avoid it but not to avoid the this subject but like in our Greek Roman Jewish Christian religion and Kali the blood-thirsty gods are virtual reality programmers and users give them the controller and the first thing they will do is play with breaking the game

we desire to break the game of egoic personal control limits and push the wrath and smite button

Blood is boring it is all in many video games and movies and all throughout religion so it is boring to confront our interest in transcendent and transgressive violence not for the purpose of blood or violence but for the purpose of breaking which is what the mind wants in studying its control breaking and transcending and fully knowing about personal control and how the transcendent thinking can deliberately intend to break control and show and reach understanding including a desire to carry out some expression of our helpless being subject to our stated near future worldline

there are several distinct ideas interacting at play here but in religious myth they join together in a system such that picturing blood from control transgression means acknowledging the dominance of time in which we are embedded helplessly

a full treatment of converting your wrath by picturing satisfying satisfactory mythic sacrificial blood should discuss each of the dangers that I listed of each mystic phenomenon such as meta-perception the unreality and mental constructs like comic book of experience

This is the good transcendent heart of religious sacrificial violence idea which is actually not about blood or violence but is about transcending the minds control limits and understanding the uncontrollable hidden source of our stream of control thoughts and intentions that we receive

This is a compelling mystic state explanation of the logic and mechanisms at work in the mystic peak window a thorough start covering the basics of the phenomenon including the role of intending wrath picturing blood satisfying the driving logic and project of understanding control dynamics and the ultimate source of control and why picturing the sacrifice animal blood averts the wrath of the god in Greek Roman Jewish and Christian and other mystic state brands to show the God blood is to show your own transpersonal mind your complete grasp of limitations of personal control and effectively meaningfully virtually demonstrating that personal control is subject to transcendent control sources such as ones creator given unchangeable space time worldline

Michael Hoffman January 7, 2013 egodeath.com
Copyright 2013 Michael Hoffman all rights reserved
Group: egodeath Message: 6269 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 08/01/2013
Subject: Re: Passover blood of sacrifice protectively averts threat of contro
Change convert to avert
Change stated to fated
Group: egodeath Message: 6270 From: michaelagryder Date: 08/01/2013
Subject: Re: Hypotheses for objections, closure, safety
I want to tell you about my experience so you may just shed your opinions on it:


Years prior to my first use of an entheogen (psylocibin), I would have a recurring “dream state” that was induced whenever I huffed gasoline (stupid as hell, I know) that I could never quite make out.

Years later, on my trip, that earlier “gas trip” actually PLAYED OUT IN REAL LIFE, right there, and as it did, I literally thought I was dying, and I remember in that moment realizing that we are not autonomous agents at all, but like cars on a cable.
Group: egodeath Message: 6271 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 09/01/2013
Subject: Defining new field: Theory of Loose Cognitive Phenomenology
I here define a new field of study and theorizing, a domain of knowledge and discussion and model-construction that is informed by the Egodeath theory aka my Transcendent Knowledge, including the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence, and also is informed by the extreme Maximal Entheogen Theory of religion and culture, which I have defined.

The extreme Maximal Entheogen Theory of religion and culture is a useful theoretical tool that must be used and leveraged to its full potential, distinctly from the matter of whether it is true in all details. Block Universe Eternalism is also the official beginning or starting premise, the most useful point of reference possible, for any theory of time. My main Egodeath article serves this role as not exactly the final word, but rather the final starting point that can be carved in rock.

Toward completion of basic mytheme explanation, I do want to explicitly add 2011-2012 mytheme connections such as the following:

o Branching-tree / possibility bush in relation to worldline snake/worm, along with branchless tree/pole/stake.

o Door-frame blood of the sacrificed lamb causing pass-over of the angel of death, into the promised land, and equivalent themes in the Bible where the entire city-founding-like future of the entire nation of Israel was entirely put into threatened jeopardy, such as sacrificing Isaac which would annihilate the entire future of Israel. Tackle explicitly, head-on, why vision of blood sacrifice provided already is a relief in the peak window of the advanced intense loosecog state.


The Philosophy of the Loose Cognitive Binding State

Existing philosophy topics must be all re-styled with a central focus on loosecog. The entire field of Philosophy, as with other fields, must be moved onto a different basis, of loosecog, to, for the first time in modernity, start to find what the field is really potentially all about.

Also, in creating a new field, that interacts with and transforms all other fields, define a domain-specific approach to thinking about loosecog. My thinking is its own authority. The field of Loosecog Studies stands on its own, though it commands power in other fields to electrify and amplify them how they ought to be. We thus combine the unique character of modern era clueless ordinary-state-limited thinking, with classic pre-modern entheogen-based thinking in all fields and domains of life. The modern era was influenced by entheogens but not officially.


It’s not a matter of importing some other, existing domain’s type of logic — such imported logic is reductionism, like Rodney Stark explaining religion as social meme spread, or other full-on reductionist “theories of religion” that say religion is really nothing but neurological activity, or social network; before the turn of the century, people back then committed such totally dismissive reductionism that they “explained” Christianity as nothing but sun worship, being blind and ignorant of the entire subject matter to be explained, utterly failing to provide a theory of religious experiencing, even though some such writers wrote correct assertions about visionary plants in mystery religions. Must use a logic and fitting-together, that is practical and loosecog focused, per my 1988 distinction between “practical control rationality” vs. “pure rationality”.

I steer theorizing by valuing highly Coherentism (a theory above all must be self-coherent) and Phenomenology, rather than airtight math-like positivism. The theory must be generally coherent, though not necessarily with a positivistic math-like coherence. Other fields must not try to reduce or distort this unique field of Loosecog Studies, such as materialist reductionism (“loosecog insights are mere brain neuron misfiring”) or “Loosecog is really just Campbell and Jung.” No, Loosecog Studies is Loosecog Studies: it is not Transpersonal Psychology, nor is it neuroscience, nor is it subsumed under “Theories of Religion”.

Even having mere thematic coherence, in describing 10 driving phenomena in mystic-state experiencing that produce mental model transformation, is the right relevant kind of truth this field must be devoted to and steered by, or directed by. This field is devoted to relevant kind of transcendence of control, thinking, the mind, and cognitive states, and time, and the dynamics of mental model revision and construction (like Paul Thagard’s work). The relevant kind of theory, certainty, and sure-footed knowledge in this field, is, pursue theory development such that it affects control dynamics, ability, and capability, in relevant, practical ways. This model and theory that results is not driven by truth, but by powerful practical effect, as experienced, as a personal control wielding agent.

For example, my theory-construct of the “control seizure vortex” is not driven by truth/logic, like, “positivistic logic dictates there must be control seizure”, but rather, the right kind of theory-work here is to usefully and powerfully describe, ergonomically, in potent shocking fashion, how the mind gets enticed, seduced, hooked, attracted to, as well as horrified, shocked, repelled, hiding and shielding itself from seeing the resulting dynamics and apparent (at least *apparent*) compelling ramifications, like “If I see that fearsome idea clearly, I will be forced out of control.” A thousand dry-canal books by analytic philosophers in the OSC (Ordinary State of Consciousness) are irrelevant here.

The given fact, the datum to be theory-described, is that, in fact, the mind sees a strangely attractive idea in loosecog, and panics, saying “seeing that idea will cause and force and compel myself to practically go generally psychotic-type out of control.” You can argue “no, that’s not convincing, such going out of control is not logically justified and it’s not even properly defined, since Philosophers don’t agree on the nature of our having control.” The latter OSC-type armchair objection is horrifically irrelevant and is irresponsible, shirking the duty, the claimed work the Philosopher claims to be doing: the modern-era Philosopher *claims* that he is explaining things, so, he must do what he claims he is doing, and *explain* — not explain-away or analyze-to-death egodeath until egodeath is prevented from occurring, by sheer force of definition.

Philosophizing must not demolish and explain-away and dissolve the very dynamics that it purports to be good at modelling and clarifying. The labor of Philosophy is to *clarify* what the mystic-state mental dynamics are — not to deny those as merely illogical thinking that’s epistemologically unjustified. Loosecog Studies is firstly about *modelling* the explanandum, of cognitive phenomenology of the loosecog state, as I have done since at least April 1987, and as Benny Shanon exemplifies better than most, in his book Antipodes of the Mind.


Runaway positive feedback of the idea of loss of control

Runaway positive feedback of the idea of loss of control, is another loosecog dynamic phenomenology that brings its own distinct dangers, that combine with the many other dangers from the other classic typical loosecog phenomena, thus producing explosive, severely, fatally dangerous control instability, truly fully problematized, a red-alert ecstatic emergency, that requires and demands a transcendent rescuing and reset of the personal control system in the advanced intense loosecog state.

Personal control thinking gets hooked, like in an invisible net, a labyrinth pulled into the center unavoidably, the effort to avoid seeing the attractive control-death thought exacerbates seeing it, forming a positive feedback loop, runaway feedback of thinking is what the mind senses and panics from:

oh no my kingdom is definitely about to fall because, like I experienced Spring 1986 in daily life in intending to do classwork, or like alcoholism: per Daniel Wegner’s book White Bears and Other Unwanted Thoughts, the very effort to identify the idea that must be avoided, and test whether the mind is able to avoid it, brings the idea more into attention and out of control, so my control power is doomed to fall because I see that the harder I try to avoid the runaway positive feedback of the thought of loss of control, the stronger the envisioning and mental constructing of the loss of control scenario becomes. That’s much of the referent of the figure of the king caught, power dead, in the tree; for example, that dynamic is exacerbated by the experience of a control explosion sitting unavoidably on the worldline ahead.

That dynamic of positive runaway feedback that every effort only exacerbates, is a distinct dynamic distinct from the other dangerous interlocking phenomena-dangers that I listed in recent writings.

There’s revolution, lying ahead on every road
There are new thoughts, ready and waiting to explode
The bell may toll for some
Nothing can change the shape of things to come
— Max Frost

In the chronic controlaholism vortex, which is our seizure passageway to heaven, the old monster that stands against viable self-control that’s required for continued civilization, causes futile battling to retain control. The mind’s attempt to push away thinking about a thing must focus on that thing with full intensity, forming a vicious cycle that crashes the personal control system.

That dynamic happens, as the given explanandum, regardless of naive positivist propositional logic in analytic philosophy and objections such as “But that can’t happen logically, because your terms are not yet defined unambiguously, and thousands of years of philosophers aren’t unanimous. Therefore the problem doesn’t exist.” The dynamic wonderfully does assuredly exist as sure as conscious present awareness, and as sure as “the bus driver controls the bus” in some sense (cue Magical Mystery Tour: tires screeching, 2-second silent cliff fall, then crash explosion).


We have a direction-challenged plethora of tight-cog (Ordinary State of Consciousness) based Philosophizing. We have a little bit of exposure to loosecog, plus my Egodeath theory: see there the immense gap that is to be filled, filling-in the gap between our mountain of crappy OSC-based Philosophizing (at least officially, Hofstader’s book GEB is not about LSD, nor is Rucker’s The Fourth Dimension about LSD, officially). There is a large existing gap, in 1985 or 2013, between loosecog and areas of investigation and writings. Now that wealth of presumably tight-cog-based, OSC-mode Philosophy, books, and writings, is converted, to cover primarily the loosecog state. That instantly doubles our span of knowledge and relevance.


What do all mystics think? It is powerful to assume that all mystic philosophers in the peak state are unanimous and agree with my Egodeath theory, that the Egodeath theory is the explicit completed basics of the Perennial philosophy (against Katz). Thus I assert the mind has innate egoic and innate transcendent mental structures regardless of the corporate brand of mystic religion or era or region or planet or cognitive substrate (android or human or alien makes no difference; control agency switches the same way, from egoic mental model to transcendent mental model). Thus I take the ideas far Furthur than Perennial philosophy and generalizers who say all mystic experiencing is the same. I assert that all mystic experiencing is the same when alien androids ingest their version of acid-equivalent to produce loosecog.

Attention all planets of the solar federation
We have *assumed* control

Importance of forming a foundation of the simplest possible views per main Egodeath article. This singular simple starting point that my Theory defines is more important than some variants possible, some book “4 Views Debated on Topic X Within Loosecog Studies” in 2050. The first order of business must be to define and describe the proposed model that’s the most useful point of reference — my Egodeath theory; *not* trying to test and doubt and kill the thing, the theory/model, through hyper-critical analysis that dissolves-away the entire topic of loosecog ideas, right from before it is even started. The first order of business in Science is form a tentative explanation, which means you must define that tentative explanation.

The official view on mystic altered state experiencing fails every effort to even be a start toward a Science, because in the official story, there’s not even an attempt — despite John Pilch’s work, and books about the Catholic Eucharist and its Holy Spirit salvific effect — to present a *theory* as such, an explicit, summarizable theoretical model of how specifically the altered state is induced and how it works. The “old theory” is no theory at all. Ask the official writers: how did New Testament Christians access the intense mystic altered state? How does the mystic state regenerate us, or our thinking? What is your theory and theoretical hypothesis and explanatory model? The official answer is a heap of words amounting to silence.

There is no official specific hypothesis or explanation of how the New Testament people got into the mystic holy spirit visionary state, nor how that state specifically regenerated the person’s psyche. My new theory competes against the old non-theory, which is but an evasive foggy haze exactly the same as Wasson’s hazy, evasive, noncommittal, prevaricating, self-contradictory and nonsensical, unintelligible non-view, a non-position: his is the same non-position, the same non-theory, as Letcher and all the rest.

John Allegro actually has a *specific* summarizable theory: my theory can really be said to displace Allegro’s *theory* because he actually *has* a bona fide theory, unlike the other writers who posture with lots of words but they have no goods to deliver, no specifiable theory of *how* mystics get into loosecog and are changed thereby, or a theory of to what extent are drugs the driving force throughout religious history? Allegro too, fails to provide a real, specific theory on the extent of entheogen use — he flatly contradicts himself, show us his lack of integrity as a theorist: he is only intent on discrediting Christianity, so he uses kettle logic: Christianity began as nothing but merely a drug cult, which was then forgotten, and that’s proved by the big public mushroom tree in the *middle ages* chapel on the cover of his book without commentary.


In the new field I define, Loosecog (the Philosophy and Theory of the Loose Cognitive Binding State of Mental Functioning), we don’t need general Epistemology. We need Epistemology specifically regarding loosecog phenomenology. Loosecog is the ultimate microscope/lens for doing Philosophy (as with Religion and Cognitive Science, and music, and drama, and Political Philosophy). The loose cognitive state is the Philosophy state of consciousness and is the source of Philosophical thinking, and of Theology. The ordinary state of consciousness (tight mental construct binding) is the non-Philosophical state, where our attempts to philosophize are forced, stilted, and crippled, a travesty of proper philosophizing, which must be loosecog based. To each section heading in a Philosophy book, add “in loosecog”.

The driving goal of theory construction about loosecog phenomenology isn’t truth, but rather, forming a good useful descriptive coherent intelligent model of loosecog, Transcendent Knowledge, myth, religion, and religious experiencing.

The field I define, of Loosecog Studies, is more about ability-knowledge than propositional knowledge. The field of Loosecog theory requires mode-consistent, mode-relevant modelling, not armchair (ordinary-state-based) general airtight logic that compels intellectual consent or even action-consent.

Sitting in loosecog in an armchair, or a room in 1993, all is fine, relaxed, supernally preternaturally mentally relaxed, then you latch a thought and jump up and enter the panic ecstatic mode and your thoughts are compelled and drawn to envision control insights, harm, trembling, excitement, repudiation of the claim to wield freewill-type power, followed by the experience of rescue and re-stabilization, then boringness and loss and depression, the mind busily constructing a new model now, and appreciating the control-loss blood vision being expressed already in the figure of the pass-over sacrifice.

These dynamics are the most important to theorize, to model, to publically discuss, such as the mental dynamic in loosecog, of the vision of Jesus on the cross as the wrath-averting blood of the lamb that causes the angel of death to be satisfied that we are in trembling respectful relationship toward our transpersonal power = God’s power = our given worldline’s power over our freewill-shaped personal control thinking. In that perspective, one’s personal control power is dominated and nullified by the power of God the creator of our given, frozen worldline. Ordinary-state philosophy objects that the worldline is a mere hypothesis — missing the relevant point or dynamic. The mind can construct a compelling mental model of time as a given frozen worldline, that causes a perspective that causes power to collapse, in experience.

The point is not certainty or truth so much as what are the actual capacities of the mind; what control modes is it possible for the mind to subjectively experience, as a matter of *cognitive phenomenological* fact, as the given? Given: loosecog accesses the mind’s ability to experience the frozen worldline helpless puppet perspective. How does that experiencing and mental modelling work? That has nothing to do with truth or compelling analytic philosophy or airtight epistemology. Overthrow the idol of Epistemology and Ontology, Propositional Logic; instead, Theory must worship the god of *cognitive phenomenology*. What are the structures possible in our loosecog experiencing? How do those work? What sparks fly? What explosions are possible, climaxes, and how are those climax capabilities isomorphic or analogous with bodily climax?

Theory propagation and development is War. Treat the official story (historicity, entheogen-diminishing/minimizing) as a conspiracy, a war, a battle. For example, the Ptolemaic model is the conspiracy status quo view that the official culture is bent on enforcing, and the Copernican model must fight against those forces of suppression, censorship, and dogma to spread and develop and propagate and link-up to become commonly available or dominant. The social theory of how science actually occurs.



The theme of “believe” is a central mystic theme in the New Testament. It means learn the transcendent mental model of self, time, and control (per the Egodeath theory) including reading and deciphering mystic metaphor, or Hellenistic meaning-flipping, and also, socially and politically align with and be faithfully committed to and allied with the movement against hierarchical society and power and economics, aligned with the flat-society, no-kings, anti-aristocratic movement that was associated with the Jews.


Loosecog Studies requires domain-appropriate structuring of the model of that domain. What is important and worthwhile is not whether the Egodeath theory is true, or whether we must experience these phenomena as if math equations lead us in airtight fashion compelling us through the search-labyrinth in a single way every time. What’s critical for a good useful field of Loosecog Studies is to generally describes the common personal control dynamics that reliably occur classically, to model this target domain well, to bring relevant explanatory power, in a coherent, intelligible, summarizable model, far more intelligible and relevant than other views or rather other heaps of notions, which are nothing more than hazily ill-defined non-theories.

The first and only real bona fide *theory* of religious experiencing is the Egodeath theory. There are now some “Psychology of Religion” books that don’t suck quite as totally bad as the other clueless junk, in other approaches or domains, that sort of discusses or pretends to discuss religious experiencing.

It is perfectly effective to postulate usefully that all mystic experiences are entheogen-induced. Some precision is warranted, and some generalization to form a compact specific generalized model, Katz and postmodernist hyper-plurality or diversity be damned. Here is harmful, mentally stultifying and useless, defeatist, even nihilistic hyper-specificity in writings about mystic experiencing:

“Every person’s experience is different, so there can be no psychology nor mind nor such a thing as thinking.”
“Every atom is unique, so there’s no such thing as atoms in general.”
“Language is inaccurate and misrepresents, therefore language must not be used.”
“There is no such thing as self (it’s an illusion), separateness, consciousness, mind, freewill, truth, personal control, persons, Gnosticism, a single Christianity, …”

Such defeatist, extremist views, and inept command of language, amount to semantic hyper-caution or political correctness gone insane and committing suicide. My mind is trained by practical engineering mentality, and I objected to the direction QM interpretation went, in my Modern Physics class.


The fact to be explained, which I have done, is that the various cognitive phenomenology of the loosecog state gather their stormy dangers together, in the mind, forming a perfect sea-storm, regardless of whether block universe determinism has a math-like forcefulness of your control-loss, regardless of whether Analytic Philosophy writers all agree that the mind *legitimately* is compelled by logic to say “the block universe idea made me lose control”, and regardless of how they tell the mystic in panic “Wait, you cannot legitimately lose control or enact some notion of such yet; you must first define to all of our standards, what the supposed concept of ‘having control’, and ‘losing control’ mean, precisely.”

I watched my friend die in 1980, he hadn’t even been initiated yet, he had no time for delay but needed ergonomic complete enlightenment, my 1997 or 2006 Egodeath article, though the infantilizing nanny state considers him a ‘child’ in this backwards country. My father discovered his cancer around June 1986 and was gone April 1987. We have no time for further pussyfooting around but I only have time perhaps to deliver the heart of the matter, absolutely directly, not with pretended formalism and such irrelevancies. Thus I now immediately without delay model the heart of the dynamics of the loosecog state.

I turn the story problem around and start with the central peak dynamics and explaining those by the scientific method which is a combination of anything goes and Paul Thagard’s Conceptual Revolutions explanation: replacing the old non-theory by an urgent emergency get-to-the-point executive elevator summary for those who have less than no time to beat around the bush. Loose Cognitive Studies, or the Theory of Loose Cognitive Phenomenology, this field I define, its own authority answering to no one, to no other field, is characterized by my 1997 core summary and 2006 summary main article, which get to the central point first, the central dynamic of the set of classic conspiring Egodeath mental control dynamics.

— Michael Hoffman, January 8, 2013
Copyright (C) 2013 Michael S. Hoffman, http://www.egodeath.com All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 6272 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 09/01/2013
Subject: Re: Defining new field: Theory of Loose Cognitive Phenomenology
Phenomenological Coherence is what matters for loosecog theory. What’s important in Loosecog Studies, in modelling loosecog dynamics and ideation, is Phenomenological Coherence. I hold block universe determinism a little loosely. It’s not that we realize or prove that Eternalism is certain and true, and that’s what causes or threatens loss-of-control. The causation among the loosecog phenomena which arise together is not the force of propositional logic, but is the force of phenomenological coherence; that is, the block universe supposition (including perception, sensation, and thinking) is phenomenologically coherent with (though distinct from) other standard loosecog phenomena such as runaway positive feedback upon trying to avoid thinking and envisioning and mentally constructing the dreaded intention to lose control.

My main top-level concern is, what is the relationship between main areas 1 and 2 constituting the Egodeath theory:

1. Self-control dynamics
2. Frozen pre-set block universe fatedness
3. Loose cognitive binding, mental construct processing, mental model transformation
4. Mythic metaphor, analogy in religious themes

Especially — despite the recent explosion of popularity of no-free-will — I try to only *loosely* couple the holistic Determinism premise with compelling fireworks in personal control dynamics. I don’t say that block universe fatedness necessarily causes loss of control or such control effects. Nor do I say that the main important truth that’s revealed in loosecog is block universe determinism. The main thing revealed in something called control loss, and that, too, can be doubted and dismissed by criticism. What’s revealed is a combination of, primarily, self-control dynamics shift, and also, the block universe perspective. Those are revealed in loosecog state, and are described by metaphor. What’s revealed isn’t the loosecog state (though, metaperception is revealed, and thus mental construct processing is perceived as such).

Factor 3 reveals factor 2 and especially factor 1. 1 and 2 are distinct; they don’t directly force the other, but they a phenomenologically coherent and mutually supporting. The main point is certainly point 1, not 2. 2 is auxiliary and assists in exploring 1; the block universe perspective works as a helpful tool to trigger and explore personal control dynamics and violations and limitations, so that the mind or thinking can play with and transcend personal control.

All the classic phenomenology are distinct and bring their distinct dangers which don’t each force each other with a math-like linkage or necessary causality, but, these dynamics and dangers have strong compelling Phenomenological Coherence.

— Michael Hoffman, January 8, 2013
Group: egodeath Message: 6273 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 10/01/2013
Subject: Re: Hypotheses for objections, closure, safety
Here I earn my claim to leadership in the field of explaining Schizophrenia, madness, and demon possession. My Egodeath theory is a key, essential part, the main part, of curing the modern mental disease of Schizophrenia, and works with Mad Rights. Madness, enlightenment, who can tell the difference?

Why are you frightened
I am enlightened
-lyric

Here is everything Martin Ball’s explanation of the entheogen-induced threat of control-loss: “trust”.

The Egodeath theory delves fully into modelling and explaining the experienced trains of thinking, feeling, and perceiving in loosecog, including the attractive meaningful promise of and anticipation of enlightenment packaged along with the concommitant pearl-guarding threat of control loss; and why we think of violating personal control and acting out a deliberate loss of control, and why the *idea* – not act – of mythic sacrificial self-violating harm of personal control power is what gives complete mental model transformation and purification of thinking about personal control power.


Another phenomenon and its concommitant distinct danger it brings, in the loose cognitive state: *the sheer feeling of not having control* (regardless of specifics like:

“Per my at last attaining ego-transcendent thinking, I must obediently harmfully violate personal control and act out noncontrol… “

“because control thoughts and intentions are forced upon the mind unavoidably and unchangeably by frozen fatedness per the Eternalism model of time” or

“due to my source of control-intentions being located outside the domain of mr practical personal control power” or

“because the mind is now loosened such that egoic safety control ruts/restrictions/limiters/constraints are disengaged” or

“because the theory of what it means to achieve mature transcending of personal control dictates that the mind must formally demonstrate it has overcome personal control restraints”, and so on).

These are all distinct dangerous trains of reasoning, along with sensations and perceptions. When analyzing and distinguishing these interwoven mutually phenomenologically coherent thoughts/feelings/perceptions, it’s easy to overlook the simplest given, the simplest present subjective reality that’s so vivid, simple, and immediate in loosecog: *the sheer simple immediate feeling of not having control*, is inherently dangerous, and stands alone distinctly, and is exacerbated by all the other dangers that might lead to the total resulting danger.

*The total dangerous conclusion-insight* is the purported “reasoned conclusion” that “therefore I must formally ritually act out the loss of control to repudiate my claim to have power, against God’s power and I must demonstrate obedience to God’s command he has injected into my mind”.

We can agree with this logical conclusion, yes to transcend false egoic implications or claims that you wield a power that’s tainted and polluted with false claims that trespass on the true origin of cybernetic power, you must demonstrate violating personal control constraints.

But if we agree to that reasoning, with Abraham’s knife held obediently above the Isaac who is the future existence of all of the nation (like a Greek citystate founding myth) Israel, we must also *complete* our thinking, passing beyond psychotic scizophenic insight that is as-if-helplessly obedient to the divine command-transmission; reason must go on to say, like the mythic founder of a civilzed pious god-honoring citystate:

“… and, Zeus Easily Satisfied (Meilichios) has already provided this fully satisfying demonstration of mortifying and repudiating the false, contaminated, anti-God implications of personal control power”: god (or our own god-shaped thinking) already provides us the idea of satisfactory proxy sacrifice of our malformed control claims.

For example, assenting to the mythic idea of the satisfactoriness of Abraham sacrificing the bush-caught lamb, is equivalent to demonstrating your obedience to the divine command or demand that you prove your repudiation of your youthful original misthinking about your having autonomous control power.

Schizophrenics agree that we are commanded to transcend and violate personal intention and control; the healed and demon-exorcised mind agrees that mentally affirming the idea of substitute demonstration of repudiating our malformed egoic control-claims is good because no harm is done and we go on into the viable future of the citystate or nation of Israel and have been purged and cleansed of impure control-claims.

Proxy sacrifice (and the sheer *idea* — not the dramatic enaction of proxy sacrifice) enables absolutely completely demonstrating the person’s overcoming of personal control claims, while forever allowing no harm and a viable thriving future for individual and community who agrees to this principle of satisficing by proxy sacrifice — or better and less magically, by agreeing that assenting to the mere *idea* of proxy sacrifice is sufficient and completely establishes purity of our thinking about our claims to have control.

Religion of sacrifice that has eliminated literal sacrifice is meta-proxy sacrifice.

Here is proxy sacrifice: Instead of harmfully demonstrating your repudiation of claims to personal control power through self-harm (terminating one’s viable future as control agent, like sacrificing Isaac/Israel), it’s satisfying and complete to merely sacrifice a piglet or bush-trapped lamb instead.

Here is meta-proxy sacrifice: instead of sacrificing the proxy bush-caught ram, merely think and assent to the *idea* of that God-provided, God-smote sacrificial lamb fastened helplessly and obediently to the spacetime block. The ultimate proxiness is to recognize the proxy idea as purely idea, purely a matter of understanding, not any physical sacrifice work or act.

Salvation is through faith, through idea; fullest perfection of repudiation of malformed egoic claims to have control-power can only be through sheer thinking; it”s 100% a matter of mental comprehension, not any bloody sacrificing to prove repudiation of your control-power claims.

THEREFORE the ultimate pure effective sacrifice is strictly the idea of sacrifice, strictly understanding the mythic meaning of the sacrifice metaphor as such: Jesus’ sacrifice is strictly a myth, not a historical literal event; salvation is through faith not magically efficacious literal physical harm gore blood death.

If we couldn’t be saved and our thinking be purified purely by understanding the fictional mythic story of Jesus’ crucifixion as mythic fiction , then no amount of bloody literal sacrifice can purify our thinking either; salvation and mental purification is a matter of mythic understanding about control-claims, not a matter of physical proving of obedience.

Physical action sacrifice is incapable of proving that you understand control limits. Only your mental judging of your understanding of control and mythic sacrifice can prove to your god-shaped mind that you have exorcised your false claims to control-power.

Are all these ideas airtight per logical positivism? That’s irrelevant. Modelling the dynamics and the given, actual thinking about control in the loose cognitive state, is wgat matters – not QM, not Neuroscience. A theory of myth and sacrifice must apply to the time before Abraham and explain the idea of Isaac’s ram and the idea of Jesus’ salvific sacrifice: how it is efficacious as fiction, not physical magic/acts/works.

The work and blood that actually saves us, purifies our thinking, and without harm, is ingesting the Eucharist, chewing thus the real flesh of Christ between our teeth, receiving thus purified, continued life, not harm, not through dramatic physical magic bloody sacrifice-depicting acts of doubtful proof intended to prove that we supposedly understand our noncontrol. Resorting to physical sacrifice of the mind’s controller claim, to violate and mortify egoic malformed power-claims, only proves, if anything, that you are unclear on the idea of mythic sacrifice.

My explanatory solution involves and finally explains historical debates about the Catholic Eucharist as salvific act and magical “work”, once-for-all sacrifice, and transcending physical sacrifice — but we must literally ingest that flesh of Christ which is literally physical, particularly alchemical.

I have figured out and explained directly, for the first time, now and since 1988, how mystic-state religious experiential insight works, and the neaning of the myth of sacrifice in terms of mental model transformation in the entheogen-induced loose cognitive binding state, regarding self, time, and control.

Michael Hoffman January 10, 2013 egodeath.com
Copyright (C) 2013 Michael Hoffman. All rights reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 6274 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 10/01/2013
Subject: Rock worship & the Rock altar of sacrifice
Worshipping toward the black cube of Mecca is acknowledging block universe fatedness and its personal noncontrol implication. The black rock is spacetime fatedness to which we are subject, against our natural animalistic childish thinking in terms of autonomous control power.

To sacrifice, you must find and gather Rock, to build an altar of block universe divine Rock, and sacrifice the mentally purified, rightly willing victim who repudiates his egoic animal yiuthful cross-time control claims.

I claimed to roll, but now in sacrifice on the Rock altar I formally acknowledge that I am a rock.

At this altar of Rock, I formally acknowledge that I, including all my control thought and stream of intentions, am a product of the block universe. My entire worldline stream of thoughts and experiences, mental constructs, is like a worm-shaped, snake-shaped vein that is frozen in a spacetime marble block controlled by the creator of fate. I am not asserting about holistic determinism, so much as, my ultimate point is, aseeting a particular noncontrol. I assert Eternalism and brass rigid snaked shaped worldline *because* that forces my real, main point, which is a kind of repudiation of my assumption that I have a certain kind of control power: that type of control power which fits whith the Possibilism model of time. I repudiate the “tree”; cybernetic possibility branching not that that is important in itself, but rather because I repudiate *the type and conception of personal control* that *fits with* that model of time and possibility. I sacrifice my kingship claim on the tree, my kingship claimed fastened to the tree, hung on the tree. I affirm the snake and its Eternalism Rock altar and that’s not important in itself, but because I affirm the model if personal control that fits with that model. Metaphor’s correct logic, relevant and mathematically perfect: Tree ~= altar of Rock = snake = god-given sacrificial lamb = worldline = ultimately:

Mental model of personal control power that fits with the Eternalism model of time as opposed to the Possibilism model of time. The important ultimate point for mental regeneration or mental model transformation isn’t what time-model you have, but what control-model you have. Focus on the time-model is not important in itself, but is important insofar as it implies, forces, or phenomenologically coheres with your control-model you hold.

The egoic control-model fits with the Possibilism time-model. To affirm the Possibilism or branching-tree time-model is tantamount to affirming the egoic (animalish, childish, youthful, first-born, condemned, original, malformed, impure, diseased, passing, under a sentebce of death, sinful, rebellious, evil-doing, lying, demon-possessed) model of control, control-model.

The transcendent control-model fits with the Eternalism time-model. To affirm the Eternalism or nonbranching-tree time-model with spacetime worm worldline is tantamount to affirming the transcendent (enlightened, loosecog-informed, mature, adult, initiated, divinely approved, non-dying, lasting, permanent, last-born, subsequent, purified, exorcised, healed, cleansed, well-formed) model of control, control-model.

To reject the Possibilism time-model is to reject the concommitant egoic control-model.

To affirm the Eternalism time-model is to affirm the concommitant transcendent control-model.

Our heart or core since we are firstly control agents, is our control-model. Further out but fitting with that is our time-model. Mecca black Rock worship: I assert the Block Universe Eternalism model of time and thus am considered pious and reverent not because I have the right model of time, but because I have the right model of personal control or noncontrol that fits with that model of time. I am, my mental model is, divine-conformant, because I hold the model of noncontrol which is implied by my model of time and possibility non-branching.

Original resarch findings by Michael Hoffman, theorist of ego transcendence since October 1985

This has been another post typed with one finger.
Group: egodeath Message: 6275 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 11/01/2013
Subject: Re: Rock worship & the Rock altar of sacrifice
Max efficient compact model:

tightcog gives autonomy/Possibilism;
loosecog gives puppethood/Eternalism

Voice dictate

The goal is not to model the truth of physics but rather to accurately and efficiently model the truth of how the mind’s experiencing is shaped and characterized in tight cog versus loose cog

in tight cog experiencing is shaped as autonomy, possiblism with branching future possibilities, naïve realism of perception, and literalism of reading

in loose cog experiencing is structured as puppethood, non-control, 2 layer control with hidden uncontrollable thought source and helpless thought receiver, block universe eternalism with worldline
monocoursal non-branching possibility, meta perception and unreality and explicit mental construct processing with pure awareness separated out from mental construct binding, and metaphoricity metaphor awareness consciousness of analogies

this the goal of good theory in the field of loose cog studies or ego death theory : efficiency not accuracy of describing individual things but rather the goal is to come up with an extremely simple model explanatory that has extremely broad explanatory power regardless of that mere facts and data and reality

the main driving concern is not truth data facts history but rather accuracy of generalization in characterizing thinking feeling and perceiving in the tight cognitive binding state and the loose cognitive binding state

what is revealed in loose cog is a mental model alternative which can be described as a single subject that is really conceived or as two or three or four or 12 subjects regardless of whether the subject of rethinking is presented as one subject or divided into two distinct subjects such as control model and time model or four subjects such as self time control and possibility or 12 subjects as I attempted in 1988 through maybe 2005

it was a breakthrough in efficiency of theory structuring to present what is changed in your mental model divided into two subjects : control and time, or personal control agency and block universe time and possibility

axiom: however many subjects you divide it into 1,2,4 or 12 these mental model areas that are transformed in loose cog always transform interlocked together

even though the topics or subjects are distinct they all change together as a system and they each arise together and arise distinctly and independently

these phenomena and thoughts and perceptions and feelings or sensations arise independently but they are mutually supporting ; the arrows of influence go every way and moving from tight cog to loose cog, it’s not only that a changed view of time causes you to have a changed view of control; also your changed view of control causes you to have a changed view of time

time feels frozen in loose cog and Control feels gone in loose cog and the feeling of non-control suggests frozen time and the feeling of frozen time suggests non-control

it is a holistic shift from the holistic tight cog mental model (and experiencing; thinking feeling perceiving ) to the holistic loose cog mental model plus the mystic does not assert in isolation the eternalism model of time nor does the mystic assert in isolation non-control

the mystic asserts the entire system as we see in myth and religious writing it makes little difference whether you depict time in myth or possibility branching or the king losing his power it is all one system

in todays breakthrough in efficiency and simplicity of theory especially a four quadrant diagram that is universally equivalent to all mythic figures of snakes kings time branching possibility all of those , and hunting searching the mind and Elevated awareness unbound from mental construct processing , and being in love and attracted to the God that kills oneself upon seeing the God’s power , and hero and monster guarding the treasure that is attractive , all of that is suggested efficiently in four quadrants

on the left is tight cog which gives egoic thinking

the upper left box is the mental model of egoic control ,the egoic mental model of control labeled
Autonomy
or other one word label

lower left : egoic mental model of time labeled
Possiblism
( branching future)

The right side is tight cog binding, which is transcendent mental model

upper right: the transcendent mental model of control labeled
Puppethood
(non-control, two level control: hidden uncontrollable thought source and helpless thought receiver )

lower right :the transcendent mental model of time labeled
Eternalism
(block universe single pre-existing future with no meta-change)

we could merge the time model and control model in one box “the mental model of time self ,control and possibility “, but per myth and rock lyrics the most efficient way to present all the data the topics that are changed remapped in the mental model is as two groups :control and time

in 2006 I thought metaphor is not what is revealed , loose cognition and mental model transformation is not whats revealed

what’s revealed is mainly not one monolithic subject but two distinct subject areas in theory of religion and in myth and rock lyrics

those two main distinct interlocked subjects are control and time

all the details of what mental model topics change can be placed into those two key fields and in January 1988 I pictured when reading “way of Zen”, Minkowski space time frames of reference possibly going back to Edwin Abbott around 1880 with roots in theology of god’s eternal perception and predestination when relativity started in 1905

Relativity distracted everyone from the ego death implication of Monkowski space-time diagrams which clearly depict the theology eternal and some perspective and the antiquity idea of and ask experience of frozen time block universe time as space bike dimension which is not an idea that requires Einstein and special relativity in modern 20th century but is self evident in intense loose cog state

The ancients knew more, and more relevant, content in cognitive science and philosophy of space-time than the stupid modern non-thinkers, single state thinkers childishly limited to the ordinary state of consciousness in the dark ages of the 20th century

what kills the ego is not relativity but Minkowski space time especially particularly time as a spacelike dimension which happens to be precisely the mystic model of time and people object to determinism but especially people object to pre-existence of the future because that above all kills the ego and

people should have recognized that this is exactly what is revealed in religion and the Mystic state both the eternal model of time and yes absolutely the ramifications that go with it of non-existence of the moral agent and implies no free will which is exactly the concern the focus of religion and mysticism

but people didn’t understand religion mysticism or metaphor so they did not recognize that the adventures of a square by Edwin Abbott taken up by Rudy Rucker in 1976 first edition of the fourth dimension indeed does talk about the God eternal point of view that reduces us to puppets and snake shaped world lines frozen in space time

yes absolutely time as a spacelike dimension leading up to relativity absolutely has ramifications of ego nullity but people didn’t know enough about myth and mystic perception and theology to recognize that time as a spacelike dimension and its implication of noncontrol is exactly the heart of religious revelation in the loose cog state

The latest fad by materialist reductionism is to claim that no-free-will follows from reductionist science

they are ignorant as a rock about the mystic state and myth and religious experiencing and theology and religion or they would realize that no free will per the block universe eternalism model particularly time as a space like dimension regardless of quantum mechanics is exactly the concern of mystic religion and transforming ideas about moral agency

these scientists have a immature outsiders view a non-initiate view of religion reading it completely literally

they fail terribly totally to recognize that no-free-will, and the resulting supposedly problem unacceptable of personal non-control, is what is actually experienced vividly, not merely abstractly thought about, revealed in the mystic peak entheogen state that is esoteric insider religion real religion interpreted intelligently not childishly like these ignorant atheist reductionist scientists who are bad philosophers and ignorant of mystic experiencing or reading deciphering mythic metaphor

All throughout the ignorant single state modern era people stupidly only objected to causal chain determinism and time as a spacelike dimension saying these are unacceptable this view must be rejected because it eliminates moral responsibility and free will and leaves no role for the self and personal agency

they were blind, these points are precisely the points that are revealed in the mystic state but people failed to connect these ideas because they were ignorant of deciphering myth and recognizing metaphor in which religion has always asserted time as a space like dimention block universe eternalism and everything that implies for the illusion of self personal control autonomy and personal control power which is all exactly what is revealed in esoteric religion

but people simply dismissed that without, they dismissed these supposedly objections such as non-control without even realizing that they were exactly rejecting that which is experienced and felt and perceived in the loose cog state

I am the first modern theorist to explicitly recognize in summary the extremely efficient depiction moving from egoic mental model on the left to transcendent mental model on the right which is goes along with switching from the tight cognitive binding state on the left to the loose cognitive binding state on the right

regarding the subjects which change in the mental model it is best it is most efficient to present the monolithic change as two subjects: the control model and the time model so that:

in tight cognition the mind is programmed to hold and think and feel and perceive the autonomy control model in conjunction with the possibilism time model and

in the loose cognitive state the mind is programmed to have and think and feel and perceive structured as the puppet could control model in conjunction with the eternal is him time model

the control vortex loss of control dynamic is part of the process of mental model transformation and recognition of metaphor is part of the transformation process and meta-perception perceiving mental construct processing as such factors in

but mainly what is revealed in the mystic state is grouped under the subject heading of control and time

those are the master themes interlocked though distinct

I do not say that Eternalism is the truth and that is reality that is revealed , that the enlightened person must agree with is eternalism

rather I say absolutely and efficiently that tight cog makes you have the possibilism perspective and loose cog makes you have the Eternalism perspective in conjunction with , in tight cog makes you have autonomy and loose cog makes you have puppethood

The breakthrough today is simplifying like myth not even sentences:

Tight cog: egoic mental model , autonomy, possiblism; also naïve realism, and literalism

loose cog: transcendent mental model, puppet hood, uncontrollable thought source& helpless thought receiver, eternalism block universe worldline; meta-perception = awareness unbound from mental construct processing to look at it, and metaphor awareness, also perception solipsism the bubble of awareness like in a cave of mental constructs experienced as a small room filled with television screens

but my main most efficient most compact myth depiction ,the shortest formula most potent and efficient is:

loose cognition gives autonomy and possiblism feeling
tight cognition binding gives puppet hood and eternalism feeling

Islaam is a religion in the shape of a people worshipping a big cube of marble sent down as message from heaven to earth, message of block universe eternalism together with puppet hood, personal noncontrol.

when the block universe meetyourright fell to earth it killed many heathen unbelievers in no free will and eternalism and noncontrol but by a miracle Mohammed who believed correctly in these things survived and walked away to have a future

I am a nature worshiper I worship rocks and snakes and trees especially trees without branches also sacred springs from which streams flow and caves and a fork in the path where a decision is forced to occur

Original research findings by Michael Hoffman, theorist of ego transcendence since October 1985
Group: egodeath Message: 6276 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 12/01/2013
Subject: Re: Bk: Ruck/Hoffman: Entheogens, Myth, and Human Consciousness
This is my book review.

Entheogens, Myth, and Human Consciousness
Carl Ruck, Mark Hoffman
http://www.amazon.com/o/asin/1579511414
158 pages (not 224)
Ronin Publishing
Publication Date: January 8, 2013


Myth refers to entheogens & slight phenomenology of consciousness

“Entheogens, Myth & Human Consciousness” summarizes the Carl Ruck paradigm. This book is a short summary and survey of his work, of the books and articles in his school of thought, which includes Mark Hoffman, R. Gordon Wasson, Blaise Staples, Clark Heinrich, Jonathan Ott, and Jose Celdran. Ruck and Hoffman show that psychedelic entheogenic psychoactive visionary plants are the origin of religions and religion. Despite the word ‘Consciousness’ in the title, this book and the work of Ruck and his circle does not cover cognitive phenomenology.

Given that this book is a general survey and summary of Ruck’s work, I’m critiquing and commenting on his general approach: how Ruck’s coverage advances understanding, and what the limitations of that approach are. I won’t go into details here, such as some points Ruck makes about Wasson that are debatable.

It would be a mistake to focus on whether Ruck proves that religion and myth refer to entheogens. I axiomatically assume that priests and scholars agree with Ruck even if censorship artificially gives the appearance that scholars agree with the official entheogen-diminishing paradigm. Entheogen scholarship should, like Ruck, give little attention to the official, entheogen-diminishing view. This book reviews the 20th Century history of the reception of the Entheogen theory of religion. Ruck shows how Wasson told Robert Graves to self-censor Graves’ 1950s discovery of mushrooms as the foundation of Greek myth and initiation religion.

Ruck’s work, if extrapolated to the maximum, shows that religion comes strictly through visionary plants. This use of his work supports a simple coherent model of intense mystic experiencing. The theory-development work at hand is not to compel a change in the official dogmatic story of religion, but rather, to make a compelling, actual explanatory model of religion, given that religion is accessed through entheogens. Recognizing entheogens as Ruck does is only the starting point; we must not stop theorizing where Ruck stops.

As far as I’m concerned, the only scholars who matter are those, many scholars, who agree — silently or vocally — with Ruck, or at least who, under the reality of heavy censorship, ensure that their writing is compatible with Ruck’s entheogen theory. Ruck is certainly correct; actually he doesn’t go far enough in emphasizing that every religion or brand of transcendent knowledge originates from visionary plants. That aspect of Ruck’s thinking isn’t worth critiquing; it is the starting point or mere preliminary for a critique. The entheogen theory of religion is not controverted or in doubt, as far as I am concerned, as an entheogen theorist.

Rather, the necessary critique is: how well does Ruck explain the meaning of religious myth, given that all religion comes from visionary plants? Not very well; his explanation is a long way from satisfying meaning. Ruck’s approach is misleading in that it puts the main emphasis on the visionary plants instead of correctly putting main emphasis on specific cognitive experiential dynamics as the main referent which myth describes by analogy and metaphor. This book does not present a new kind of coverage of myth and cognitive phenomenology, as Benny Shanon’s book does (The Antipodes of the Mind: Charting the Phenomenology of the Ayahuasca Experience http://amazon.com/o/asin/0199252939), and as my work focuses on.

The Ruck paradigm is that myth points to the sheer use of drug plants in religion, as if what is revealed in religious revelation and enlightenment is the sheer presence and the fact of use of the visionary plants in religion. But I have always treated entheogens as merely the threshold outside the area that needs theorizing, merely the starting point and given; given that visionary plants are the way that the mind accesses religion, what then, is revealed within the resulting cognitive state, after ingesting the sacrament? How does the mind structure its mental construct processing in the non-visionary and the visionary-plant states: what’s the difference?

What’s the difference in experiencing, thinking, feeling, sensation, and perception, in the non-visionary contrasted with the visionary plant state? Ruck and his school halt at the doorway, showing how religious experiencing is accessed, but not what the cognitive phenomenology are, that are accessed. The barely touches on the topic of “consciousness”, or cognitive phenomenology. Benny Shanon goes somewhat further past the doorway, as if Shanon has experience with the visionary plant state and Ruck does not. Ruck writes from an outsider, armchair-theoretical, non-experiential perspective: this book doesn’t cover entheogen-induced experiencing.

For example, Ruck frames the myth of the battle as the battle to get the visionary plant. But within the religious cognitive state that the visionary plant induces, battle occurs, but which you would hardly glean by reading Ruck. Ruck and his school are not useful within the mystic intense peak altered state; the explanation of myth halt at the threshold: his theory gives us the visionary plant, but doesn’t discuss what to do mentally with myth once the mind is within the visionary plant state.

After reading Clark Heinrich’s book Strange Fruit: Alchemy, Religion and Magical Foods: A Speculative History (http://amazon.com/o/asin/0747515484) and Mark Hoffman’s Entheos journal issues, I gathered additional compelling evidence to define the simple extremist maximal position, that religion and the mystic state is and was always accessed through visionary plants. But my contribution to entheogen history scholarship is merely in support of my main focus, which is all on the “consciousness” aspect, the cognitive effects of the visionary plants, which is barely covered by Ruck, despite this book’s title.

Another author starting to build on Ruck’s work to go further than Ruck through the doorway into the altered state is Luke Myers, Gnostic Visions: Uncovering the Greatest Secret of the Ancient World (http://amazon.com/o/asin/1462005489), but again we there get more of a tour of mythic philosophy and metaphors but without resolving those metaphors into their ultimate, non-metaphorical referent in terms of describing cognitive phenomenology and the difference between mental construct processing in the non-visionary versus the visionary state of consciousness.

This book is a good survey and summary of the essential Ruck paradigm. Ruck’s work is not the final word on myth and entheogens, but is an essential intermediate building block, which gives us the fact that religion and religious myth comes from religious experiencing which comes from visionary plants. The end of the book states: “… there always seems to be something more to explore, just a little bit further along the way.” Ruck only shows that religious myth is generally concerned with the entheogen state of consciousness. But no details within that subject are provided: what are the cognitive phenomenology that occur within the entheogen-induced state of consciousness, and how are those cognitive phenomena experiential dynamics themselves described by myth?

Ruck’s paradigm has nothing to say to the person who is in the intense mystic cognitive state, or to describe to scientists what the person is experiencing; in the final assessment, his theory’s contribution is just to repeat “Religious myth refers to the use of entheogens.” This is the point of failure or petering out, of the Ruck paradigm; its boundary past which his map shows only “terra incognita” and “here be monsters”. Ruck’s map only shows the shoreline of the new land; his map doesn’t extend within the land that’s given after ingesting the plant and then turning attention beyond the plant.

Ruck’s paradigm mainly maps mythemes to the physical plants and the sheer fact that they are used, but only slightly maps mythemes to “consciousness”, that is, to the cognitive dynamics that result from visionary plants. His mapping of myth isn’t equipped and capable of describing the difference between the dynamic cognitive phenomena in the non-visionary state versus the dynamic cognitive phenomena in the visionary state.

Benny Shanon points the way significantly further here. Shanon is more truly based within the visionary state, providing a starting effort at describing how the visionary state works (after ingesting the plant then turning attention away from the plant itself) and how the visionary state contrasts with the non-visionary state.

I have found Carl Ruck’s work, including this book, to be valuable at showing that religious myth comes from visionary plants (though he doesn’t take that idea to the simple radical extreme of my maximal entheogen theory). I also found Rucks’ work valuable for providing an initial hypothesis of myth: he shows us a myth and explains how it refers to the visionary plant, and I then read his mapping and say: yes, so far as you go, that mytheme maps to visionary plants, but you are missing the more important, more ultimate, non-metaphorical mapping and meaning of that myth you have informed me of; ultimately referring to certain experiential dynamic phenomena about self, time, control, and fatedness.

Benny Shanon asserts: myth refers to visionary-state cognitive phenomenology, whatever they might be. Ruck asserts: myth refers to the use of visionary plants, with whatever experiencing results from that. The book Gnostic Visions asserts: Esoteric myth refers to experiential Philosophy describing the altered-state experiencing, whatever it consists of. My approach is more specific: religious myth refers to the use of visionary plants to cause a specific mental model transformation from a particular non-visionary mode and mental model, to another particular visionary mode and mental model, of self, time, control, and fatedness.

Thus Ruck and Shanon provide a subset of entheogen-revealed knowledge: they are correct so far as they go, but Ruck is incorrect in putting primary emphasis on the sheer use of visionary plants instead of putting primary emphasis correctly on the particular cognitive dynamics that result from the plants after having taken the plants — Ruck’s theory is not particularly equipped to focus on describing how myth maps to cognitive dynamics, as Shanon rightly calls for but as Shanon himself is not adequately equipped for.

Ruck’s paradigm is a transitional bridge to support explaining how myth points beyond the visionary plants, to the specific mental dynamics that the plants produce, such as the threat of loss of control, the snake monster guarding the specific visionary knowledge the mind desires and is attracted to, and divine help and rescue from the threat of the monster that’s part of the package deal, forming a gateway or boundary crossing — as a specific cognitive dynamic regarding our mental model and mode of experiencing, of self, time, possibility, and personal control agency.

That’s what wrong with Ruck’s school, though he contributes an essential building block toward transcendent knowledge: he puts the main emphasis on mapping myth to visionary plants, when instead, the main emphasis is correctly put on mapping myth to the specific dynamics of personal control power and mental model transformation that result from visionary plants. Visionary plants are the entryway, or the welcome mat outside, not themselves the content of what’s revealed in the peak window of the intense mystic altered state.

Carl Ruck and Mark Hoffman are absolutely correct that religion comes from visionary plants and that myth (to some extent) refers to the use of visionary plants, as summarized in this book; that’s the only explanatory theory of religion worth committing to developing. But their emphasis is mistaken and limited, mis-structured, missing the mark, and misrepresenting what myth means to the mind within the resulting intense mystic altered state. Their work is useful as a building block in support of a proper, well-formed focus on identifying and clearly modelling the true structure and concern that myth describes, with plants as a mere given and starting point but not the heart of what myth ultimately refers to and describes.

— Michael Hoffman, January 12, 2013
Copyright (C) 2013 Michael S. Hoffman, http://www.egodeath.com All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 6277 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 13/01/2013
Subject: Re: Popularity of no-free-will/determinism, history of no-free-will
My Egodeath theory amounts to a history of the idea (across all fields) of free will, no-free-will, causal-chain determinism, Possibilism, and Eternalism (block-universe holistic fatedness with time as a space-like dimension and a single, pre-existing, frozen future, with snake-shaped worldline spacetime worms). The one view or the other fits with perception, thinking, and experiencing in the ordinary state of consciousness (OSC) versus in the intense mystic altered state of consciousness (ASC) induced by entheogenic visionary psychoactive drug plants and chemicals. These ideas were mapped by mythemes.

This history awakens and surprises people. The history of the two main opposing ideas was completely misunderstood and barely considered — as surprised as people are when they read my theory; as surprised as fundamentalist scholar Dave Hunt when, after decades of writing Christian books, he discovered Reformed Theology for the first time, and was shocked. As surprised as New Age spiritualists when they discover with horror that Ramesh Balsekar portrays Advaita Vedanta as not only non-self, but no-free-will.

Idiot newagers (not Timothy Freke) love with peace and light the idea of non-self — yet are shocked at the idea of no-free-will: well, what the hell did you expect: self doesn’t exist, yet we have the power of free will?! If free will exists but the self doesn’t, who inside your mind has free will? The self, in this sense, is precisely that which owns and has and wields and controls the power of freewill. All spiritual theorists say that enlightenment is knowing non-self. Only Balsekar and I say (and many others, but people didn’t realize that!) enlightenment is precisely about knowing no-free-will, but also, experiencing it and perceiving it, in addition to thinking it.

The Myth of Free Will (3rd Edition)
Cris Evatt
http://amazon.com/o/asin/0970818181
August 2010
140 pages

Chris Evatt’s survey book The Myth of Free Will shows sacred branching crossroads on the cover, which she doesn’t recognize as reinventing classic entheogen-inspired myth. Her survey book constantly relies on the OSC-based, inferior concept of causal-chain determinism as the supposed “reason” there’s no-free-will, whereas mystics consider block time, the frozen spacetime Rock, which is experienced and perceived in the psychedelic cognitive state, as the reason there’s no-free-will. This book constantly makes the single-state generalization fallacy error of saying “we feel we have free will” — showing that she, like the other writers, is illiterate about multi-state knowledge.

I fully vividly explained, explicitly, in my 1997 and 2006 summary articles, that whether we feel freewill is a function of whether we are in tightcog or loosecog, and lately in 2013 I am 100% forceful and crystal clear and simple about this: the OSC gives the feeling of free will along with the autonomy-puppeteer prime-mover feeling and Possibilism (branching future); the ASC gives the feeling of no-free-will along with puppethood and frozen-time Eternalism block universe fatedness. When you switch between tight and loose cognitive binding, your mind switches between feeling free will and no-free-will, together with the concomitant feeling of time, possibility, control, and existence of personal self agency. Generally, the mind switches from one model of control-and-time to the other model of control-and-time.

2-state, not single-state, thinking is required to recognize this simple theory that only I am genius enough to spell out for the uninitiated and those whose minds are polluted by the last-ditch effort to Save the freewill delusion by sacrificing to the god of QM, demonstrating that we are confronted with a choice between rationality (no-free-will; single future, which is as easy to visualize as a Rock) and insanity (QM, freewill, manyworlds as in infinity to the power of infinity number of worlds).

We feel freewill when we are in tightcog, but we are programmed to feel no-free-will when we are in loosecog, though that experience comes with the experience of chaotic unconstrained non-control or instability which the author unknowingly (in roundabout way, not making the connections) describes in what we “fear” about no-free-will. She is correct on page 29 (3rd Edition) but she doesn’t realize her description applies to psychedelic mystic revelation! “We think of ourselves as first causes, prime movers or little gods.” (She there assumes unconsciously the tightcog state.) Actually her description of how unstable we’d be if we had freewill, and how people fear no-free-will: all the fears she describes in either scenario match exactly the dangers encountered in the entheogen-induced loose cognitive state.

She has no idea of this; she doesn’t see the massive connections to be made here. It’s uncanny because her book is filled with descriptions of monsters, fears, revelations, spirituality, and fragments of such wording — disconnected, accidental, unconscious, fragmented words from mystic religion here and there throughout her book but this set of writers hasn’t put the pieces connected together, which I have. My theory and thinking is structured, coherent, interconnected, organized; not scattered and incoherent and willy-nilly like her book’s accidental dis-integrated incoherent borrowing of mystic language.

Just as many writers in the 60s were totally wrong when they expressed the delusion that psychedelics are a “new” way of mystic experiencing, so now are the many scientist, atheist, naturalist, rationalist writers totally wrong when they express the delusion that no-free-will is a “new” conception of spiritual enlightenment. What did they *think* religion was *all about*? What they ever lack still though is the realization that the feeling of freewill is programmed in the mind’s structure that is in the OSC, and that the feeling — the experience — of no-free-will (*not* the experience, though, as imagined in the OSC, of causal-chain determinism) is programmed in the mind’s structure that is in the ASC.

Religion is precisely the switch from the experience of freewill original sin to the experience of no-free-will regeneration and enlightenment. The “new” writers are under the delusion that their theory is superior to religion, when in fact, their theory is a clumsy, ignorant, OSC-based groping in the dark toward what is the essential nature already of religion, religious experiencing, mystery religion initiation, as my 1988 draft describes, as my 1997 core summary defines, and as my 2006 main article describes with detailed mapping of mythic metaphor to the non-metaphorical referent: nullity of personal control power, and no-free-will, within a frozen Eternalism block-universe model.

After ingesting the traditional psychedelic sacred meal, block-universe Eternalism and your frozen, pre-existing worldline is intensely *experienced*, not modern armchair theory with its bad malformed explanation that’s based on OSC notions of “causal chain determinism”. These mystically illiterate outsiders, today’s naturalist rationalist scientist writers, say there’s no-free-will as a “new kind of spirituality that replaces religion” but they argue there’s no-free-will *because* causal chain determinism, whereas instead, mystic initiates say there’s no free will because they saw and experienced and felt fatedness, they were turned to rock, frozen and attached, fastened to spacetime and disempowered, seen by helpless awareness that felt no power to control thinking.

— Michael Hoffman, January 12, 2013, based on original research and idea-development since 1985
Copyright (C) 2013 Michael S. Hoffman, http://www.egodeath.com All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 6278 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 13/01/2013
Subject: Re: Hypotheses for objections, closure, safety
The danger of being Dionysus instead of yourself: profound uncontrollable shift or handover of intention

Another aspect, angle, or vector of danger in loosecog is the feeling that you are not yourself but your will and sense of self is now that of some other transpersonal self. Your normal self identity is in abeyance, including your usual intentions, restrictions, constraints, ruts, controls, and restraints. When you enter loosecog, at the start, you say “I intend to keep control.” But that ‘you’ goes into abeyance together with its intention to keep control, safety, viable future, and sanity. The mind of Dionysus, God, the Holy Spirit, or your transpersonal daemon takes over your center of intention.

Despite the lack of feeling of personhood or control in loosecog, there is still a kind of feeling of a personhood center and control, though it is different than usual and lacks the usual connections, style, and character; it is an alien center, though still experienced as a subjective control center. You have control in loosecog, but the problem is, it is a different, unconstrained ‘you’ who now has control over your thinking. The you who declared the intention to keep control at the start is disengaged — so much for keeping control; that intention becomes a joke and the mind of Dionysus that you now are, laughs mocking your original intent as comically, pathetically impotent and null.

Dionysus — that is, your thinking now, with ‘you’ now being Dionysus instead of the usual you — desires to show you finally and definitively, your transpersonal thinking or mind desires to definitely demonstrate so that you forever remember and are thus forced to permanently change your thinking and not re-incarnate into the egoic mental model, that your cross-time control power is null, illusory, and a mere convention or habitual assumption.

This danger overlaps with other danger aspects I’ve listed and accounted for, or inventoried in my systematic model of all the mutually supporting dangers of loosecog.

— Michael Hoffman, January 13, 2013, based on original research and idea-development since 1985
Copyright (C) 2013 Michael S. Hoffman, http://www.egodeath.com All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 6279 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 13/01/2013
Subject: Re: Rock worship & the Rock altar of sacrifice
Rock, granite, marble, stone in religious myth and religious practice:

Rock is a metaphorical analogy description of the vision (thought, feeling, and perception) of Eternalism: the frozen single-future easily visualizable fate-given Block Universe with your pre-existing future worldline (snake-worm shaped) forced upon you uncontrollably, unavoidably; holistic vertical determinism (heimarmene/fatum/fate) with time as a space-like dimension (not causal-chain determinism acting “horizontally” from one time to the next).

Stone temple (classic-style Rock band: Stone Temple Pilots) (‘stone temple’ was the first item that came to mind in starting this list)
All carved stone/rock/marble in Antiquity, and literary themes of carved stone/rock/marble
Rock cave of initiation to be reborn out from
Jesus’ rock tomb, roll away the stone door
Enemy king sealed in a cave tomb then hung on a tree in Old Testament
Gathering a pile of stones to form an altar (Old Testament)
marble altar of sacrifice, sometimes with a block universe Eternalism worldline snake/worm sculpted in relief
Black rock meteorite sent from heaven to earth in Islaam and pre-Islaamic stone worship
Cave of rock in mountain of rock
Moving statues/idols
Rock city: Petra
Jesus is the Rock we cling to
Peter the Rock, PTR
Rock tomb
The rulers (kubernetes, governors, control-agents) see Medusa’s attractive beautiful snake-haired head and are turned to stone
Turn to pillar of stone or salt
See the goddess and be turned into a statue
Petra stone-cut city
stone sarcophagus
Prometheus chained to the rock volcano mountain (fastening to spacetime block like you experience vividly, intensely, and tangibly in Salvia)
creation of man from clay: clay = malleable rock; non-rigid rigid material; water vs. rock; clay vs. rock
Rock banqueting bench
Mithras (= you the initiate) born from a rock
Leoncephalic (lion-shaped) god of time sculpture holding keys to boundary or state-crossing, wrapped by heimarmene-snake, heimarmene-snake head above the lion-man’s head, in Mithraism
Amanita in its egg-shape non-split phase as rock
Pine cone like rock like Amanita egg in Mithraism
Hermes pillars of stone
Split open a rock and God is there
Volcano crucible = liquid rock
Metallurgy, dissolve and coagulate, turning metal from rock mountain into liquid and then shaping like sculpting it
Water from a rock; water vs. rock
Divine crystal palace
Jesus descends to Hell or purgatory where flames purify and burn away illusory aspects of thinking, and rescues and pulls the saints out from the rock cave (possibly pictured as lion’s mouth, lion’s rock den, with heimarmene-snake body)
Recognizing that the water waves in the divine palace are an illusion, crystal is real (Jewish mysticism)
Snakes bind Pirithous to the rock banqueting bench in Hades’ at a visionary-wine banquet
Rock sculpture of grapes (fruit of the ivy-shaped vine) containing a heimarmene-snake

Metaphor: born from the rock cave tomb underworld
Jan 10, 2005
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath/message/3757

— Michael Hoffman, January 13, 2013, based on original research and idea-development since 1985
Copyright (C) 2013 Michael S. Hoffman, http://www.egodeath.com All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 6280 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 13/01/2013
Subject: Re: Rock worship & the Rock altar of sacrifice
ego death :: block universe fatedness perception
=
bodily death :: burial in rock/stone/marble

Typically made of rock, to connect ego death and block universe perception to bodily death and burial in literal rock:
ossuary
catacomb
crypt
necropolis
tomb

Often with relief sculpted depiction of banqueting on entheogen wine, snake, or other mythic themes. All items in antiquity were deliberately mapped 100% to mythic analogy for mystic-state experiencing, which is the starting point. Never “does this item refer to mystic state experiencing”, but rather, “Given that everything should be made to refer to mystic state experiencing, that we ancients must so map everything as best we can, what is the best way we can think of to map the item to mystic state experiencing?”

An ossuary could be made of wood or metal, which map readily to mythic analogy of loosecog phenomena, but stone/rock/marble is typical.
wood = tree of virtual illusory possibility branching, rooted in spacetime
metal = dissolve and coagulate, rock to liquid to rock-like

— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 6281 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 14/01/2013
Subject: Efficient theory: compact binary contrast & labels, innovative ergon
I have done innovative breakthrough work condensing wider and wider scope of connections and insights denser and denser. Do not take for granted that any of these connections and structured models are obvious, just because I have succeeded after decades of labor in discovering and engineering a scheme, a solution, to make this all become simple. If you say that now, after my Egodeath theory, Transcendent Knowledge is simple, you must say that it has become simple because I did the hard work of designing and discovering the possibility, how it is possible to describe all this simply.

There’s all the difference in the world between a simple elegant theory (E = MC^2) versus the labor and intelligence and strategy behind that like Maxwell’s formulas or Copernicus and Kepler’s solar system model. It’s now simple and obvious, any fool knows, planets orbit the sun elliptic orbits. That’s foolishly self-evident now only thanks to hard work; you are in fact standing on shoulders.

In 1997 I condensed core enlightenment to a few pages. In 2006, I condensed core and periphery to just 27 pages including a few-paragraph condensed yet clear summary from which the rest unfolds or unpacks. Now I condense religious revelation to a couple Maxwell’s equations of electricity and magnetism, electro-magnetism. I have made revelation and enlightenment simple and easy but this does not mean that anyone could have done that.

Kepler and Copernicus worked *hard* to discover and formulate the *easy* model. I worked *hard* to discover and engineer, like the iPhone or GUI, or graphical web browser, or light switch: this Egodeath theory is a breakthrough ergonomic technology, that required decades of ergonomics work at the same time as capability expansion (such as explaining and deciphering myths; expanding the descriptions of all aspects of ‘danger’ in the loosecog state).

___________________________

This is my innovative groundbreaking breakthrough of the past few days, regarding use of labels for time-model and control-model, and for lining up egoic vs. transcendent binary contrasts more thoroughly than before. Here is a 4-word elegant model of enlightenment, or transcendent knowledge:

Autonomy / Puppethood
Possibilism / Eternalism

Similarly efficient was my extracted contrasts from Elaine Pagels’ book The Gnostic Paul in 2002. http://www.egodeath.com/pagelsgnosticpaul.htm

I put some effort in the 2006 article toward labelling Block Universe Determinism as a mental model of time and possibility. But I didn’t and should have made an efficient label — not only a description in sentences or long phrases — for the other contrasting tightcog original youthful conception of time and possibility. I dislike ‘determinism’ because it’s always defined as causal-chain determinism, which is an abstract notion from the ordinary state. I like ‘heimarmene’ because it is defined in the ancient Greek mind as frozen future, pre-given future time as spacelike dimension, metaphorized as “rock”, the Block Universe, William James’ “iron block universe”, as people started to think of again in late modern era around 1880-1910 — though then it was too conflated with causal-chain determinism.

I like ‘Eternalism’ because it is a model of time and possibility, and is not conflated carelessly with causal-chain determinism as the supposed “reason” or mechanism. Proper Philosophy advocates of Eternalism don’t carelessly say “Eternalism is the case *because* of casual-chain determinism”.


We cannot move forward with the Epic of Evolution focusing on no-free-will until advocates understand the full history of no-free-will (not merely the history of causal-chain determinism). Only in 2006, with my Egodeath theory summarized on the Web, are people able to understand, identify, and recognize the history of no-free-will. No-free-will is broader than the history of this strange recent late-modern concept of so-called “determinism”, which means, quite narrowly and specifically, causal-chain determinism (too narrow with un-considered presumption). Determinism, which is always conceptualized and defined as, specifically, causal-chain determinism, says there’s no-free-will *because* of causal-chain determinism.

Thus the idea of “determinism” attempts not only to assert that there is no-free-will, but also — as I point out and object to — it conflates the general assertion of no-free-will with the narrow, particular explanation of *why* there’s no-free-will: the notion of ‘determinism’ is over-specific and sloppy, ill-defined, in that it asserts that supposedly the mechanics underlying no-free-will.


Description A or B below: B fits my system-wide binaries better, so therefore, I don’t want to say the Egodeath theory is agnostic about the mechanism that justifies the no-free-will view; rather, loosecog dynamics do give a particular mechanism or system of reasons why no-free-will is held: not because of causal-chain determinism, but mainly *because of time* being seen as a space-like dimension, and also, due to non-control feelings, non-self feelings, and other cognitive phenomena of the loosecog state.

A. Mystic-state loosecog perception of freewill is neutral and agnostic: it states that no-free-will is the case, but doesn’t attempt to state the underlying mechanism, and doesn’t conflate the assertion about the underlying mechanism with the overall result (no-free-will). I don’t think this description is accurate; things are more systemic, system-wide, in the contrast between non-mystic and mystic thinking/feeling/perceiving.

Or, description B is probably more accurate and relevant: we strike the reasoning of “no-free-will, because of causal-chain determinism” and specifically assert instead “no-free-will, because of time being perceived as a spacelike dimension, and other loosecog phenomena”:

B. Mystic-state loosecog perception of freewill asserts a different underlying mechanism and reasoning in support of no-free-will: it states that no-free-will is the case due to seeing the simple clear vision of time as a spacelike dimension. The mystic conception of no-free-will conflates the assertion about the underlying mechanism (time is easily seen as a space-like dimension) with the overall result (no-free-will). But mystic loosecog also argues that no-free-will is a result of several factors, and that many factors interact in a network that goes beyond the simplistic statement that “no-free-will is the case because of factor F”: time as spacelike dimension, no-free-will, nullity of personal control power with respect to time, noncontrol of your thoughts because your pre-existing worldline injects thoughts.


Similarly, loosecog is dangerous not because of a single reason, but because of a network system (per Paul Thagard’s book Conceptual Revolutions) with interconnections: you think, feel, and perceive several factors or phenomena, each which brings its own distinct dangers, and these distinct dangers interconnect to produce the overall danger, which we could vaguely label as “the threat of loss of control” (a partly misleading label for a serious and real experiential dynamic).

The loosecog mystic thinking doesn’t say “I have reason to believe no-free-will, not on a basis of causal-chain determinism, but I don’t know what the basis of my no-free-will view is.” When asserting no-free-will, loosecog thinking says “There’s no-free-will, and the basis of this is mainly time as a spacelike dimension, and partly the illusory nature of the self as personal control agent who wields freewill while causing one possibility branch to become real when that agent really could have made a different possibility branch real instead.”

Loosecog thinking doesn’t simply say, purely, “no-free-will is the case”. What’s delivered to the mind in loosecog is an entire system of thinking/feeling/perceiving regarding some 10-20 main cognitive phenomena.

Tightcog thinking doesn’t simply say, purely, “no-free-will is the case”. Typically, during the modern era, tightcog normally said “no-free-will is the case, because of causal chain determinism”. That’s extremely what Cris Evatt does to the extreme in The Myth of Free Will: she strongly equates and conflates no-free-will with the specific explanation of the underlying mechanism as causal chain determinism; for example, she doesn’t mention the linguistic philosophy argument of the A-series vs. B-series McTaggart (I dislike McTaggart’s focus on argumentation from grammar, though semantics certainly are important).

Ever since 1986, possibly October 1985, I’ve used the useful binary of “egoic vs. transcendent” (for example: egoic thinking, transcendent mental model, egoic mental mode, transcendent control system, egoic control thinking). And I came up with phrases to label my 1988 breakthrough “crystalline ground of being” idea, or “Block Universe Determinism” in my 2006 main article. But in the Philosophy of Time, there is a useful simple use of labelling: Possibilism versus Eternalism, which links simply to my Egoic vs. Transcendent labels and to my tightcog vs. loosecog labels.

My simplicity of labelling and organization made a breakthrough the other day by doing *more* like my long-established “egoic vs. transcendent” distinction and my probably April 1987 distinction “tightcog vs. loosecog” (those abbreviations are more recent; I wrote in 1987 like “loose mental construct binding” and “tight mental construct binding”. I mean to discuss the super-useful use of a single word label on 4 particular things, a breakthrough of a couple days ago, which leverages both my 1986/1987 use of ‘egoic’ vs. ‘transcendent’ and ‘loosecog’ vs. ‘tightcog’ on the one hand, and — an improvement over my 2006 article framing — the labels from the Philosophy of Time, ‘Possibilism’ vs. ‘Eternalism’, which also correlates directly to my recent, 2011 or 2012 (check the evolution of my ideas in my posts) strong simple contrast between snake vs. tree.

The breakthrough of January 2013 is this efficient compact portrayal using binaries and binary-labels fully:

Egoic control-model — Transcendent control-model
Possibilism time-model — Eternalism time-model

There is an entire list of contrasts with clean mapping or opposition, but that 4-box approach, where there is a single word label on each box, summarizes or highlights the most important thing in the contrast. Yes, like 1986, I contrast Egoic on the left and Transcendent on the right, but in particular, the breakthrough is to use a single word label applied to two (not 1 or 3, 4, or 12) boxes on the left: what’s most important is your control-model and time-model, which is sort of asserted in the 2006 main article, but is so elegantly, efficiently expressed like the named, clearly contrasting basic views in the Philosophy of Time, in addition to my long-established ‘egoic’ vs. ‘transcendent’.

Before the breakthrough, my not quite 100% efficient depiction or math equation (model) was:
egoic control — transcendent control
idea of time passing — block universe determinism

In that old messier depiction, I have semi-clean labels for control, but a bad asymmetry: I have a *label*, for block universe determinism, which is a long label (bad) and uses the word ‘determinism’ (bad), and worst of all, *lacks* a label for the egoic, tight-cog model of time.

My April 1987 breakthrough in style of thinking and writing (notation) was a matter of forging labels for my ideas, instead of — like my Oct 1986 notes show — only having complete sentences and phrases. I didn’t think much in terms of idea-labels in 1986, though I wrote “egoic mental model” and “transcendent mental model” then. My notation was clumsy and slow, I had no system of compacting my ideas by labels like my April 1987 start of routine strategic use of acronyms along with the clear new concept of “mental construct” also from April 1987. When I came up with the notation-style and thinking-style of acronyms and idea-labels as such, I simultaneously came up with the concept and language I formulated of:

mental construct [MC]
mental construct processing [MCP]
loose mental functioning binding [LMFB]
loose mental construct binding [LMCB]
mental construct relationship matrix [MCRM]
mental construct relationship matrix indexing
dynamic mental construct relationship matrix [DMCRM]

This efficient notation and use of idea-labels was like a programming language that enabled all throughout April 1987 to January 1988, my phase of ramp-up to breakthrough.

My notes in Pentel P205 mechanical pencil used a box, not square brackets, to declare acronyms, and mixed-size all-caps. I also used word processing files, with mixed-case and used ***MCP*** notation to declare acronyms, during that period. I have printouts of those files.

The time-model and control-model are the most important, overarching areas of the mental model that are changed during loosecog. That’s reflected by my priority-sequence, most important first:

1. Cybernetics; control
2. Determinism; time
3. Dissociation; loosecog
4. Metaphor; analogy

Relating those in order 4, 3, 2, 1:
Metaphor describes how dissociation changes the mental model of time and control.


To make the abbreviated list of binaries, only contrast 1, and contrast 2:
1. Cybernetics; control — Egoic vs. Transcendent mental model of control
2. Determinism; time — Egoic vs. Transcendent mental model of time/possibility


To make the complete expanded list of binaries, start by contrast within 1, 2, 3, and 4:
1. Cybernetics; control — Egoic autonomy vs. Transcendent puppethood
2. Determinism; time — Possibilism (branching future) vs. Eternalism (block universe & preexisting worldline)
3. Dissociation; loosecog — Tightcog & naive realism vs. Loosecog & meta-perception of mental constructs
4. Metaphor; analogy — Literalism vs. metaphor-recognition/facility


Then expand those 4 areas further, in that same order:
1. Cybernetics; control —
Egoic autonomy vs. Transcendent puppethood
monolithic control (“little god”; puppeteer; unmoved mover) vs. 2-level control (uncontrollable thought-source & helpless thought-receiver)

2. Determinism; time —
Possibilism (branching future) vs. Eternalism (block universe & preexisting worldline)
free will vs. no-free-will

3. Dissociation; loosecog —
Tightcog vs. Loosecog
Naive realism vs. meta-perception of mental constructs

4. Metaphor; analogy —
Literalism vs. metaphor-recognition/facility
Historicity of Muhammad/Jesus/Paul/Buddha/Church Fathers in Antiquity, vs. a 100%-fictional reading

It’s possible to add peripheral topics:
Chronological naive credulity vs. chronology agnosticism
Credulity in official story vs. ignoring official story
Credulity that published scholarship actually represents what scholars believe, vs. reading & writing while consciously taking heavy censorship into account


Add to that list of binaries: see my recent January 2013 lists of dangers in order to get my list of phenomena (which each bring distinct dangers). These phenomena/danger lists are mostly in the thread “Hypotheses for objections, closure, safety” (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath/message/6240). Present each loosecog phenomena via simple label contrasted with forging a simple label for the opposed, tightcog cognitive dynamic: Imagine a 1-word label or acronym for the following pairs:

the feeling of never having been in this thought-sequence before; jamais vu (‘I’ve never seen’ — here meaning, not “the unfamiliarity of something that you know is familiar”, but rather, meaning “I haven’t been in this thought-sequence before”)
vs.
the feeling of deja vu

The feeling that one’s intentions in the future don’t exist yet and you will later create them or will now constrain and help create them
vs.
The seeing/feeling/thinking that one’s intentions that are sitting on the near-future worldline, along which the mind is being unstoppably, unavoidably moved forward.

The feeling that you have the ability to constrain your thinking
vs.
Personal control power, that escapes any attempt, on the part of the mind, to constrain it.

The feeling that you have control over your thoughts
vs.
Perceiving that the mind’s thoughts arise from outside of the domain of practical personal control power.

Thinking is constrained, unimaginative, rutted, restricted, habitual, held within narrow unimaginative ruts
vs.
The loosened mind ranges over its entire domain of possible thoughts which the mind is capable of constructing.

Egoic, cross-time intention to retain sanity, safety, control, and a viable future; subject to and constrained by cross-time restrictions and safely limited thinking, limited to a safe boring shell or prison of restraints and limitations.
vs.
Transcendent control, deliberately demonstrating violating personal control constraints, able to deliberately override them. The transpersonal mind deliberately and formally (sacrificially) mortifies the egoic control system, to transcend it and be born out from it, to break out of that shell.

Naive realism of perception (I directly see, I directly perceive the world, the world feels real, I feel real, and my past feels real)
vs.
The feeling of unreality. Metaperception of visual perception and of mental representation of the world and your past.

The feeling of being your familiar personal self
vs.
The feeling of being Dionysus, a divine transpersonal control-identity.


All aspects of egoic vs. transcendent mental mode and mental model can be efficiently summarized by contrasting them in a 2-column table with 1-word labels or acronyms:

…………………….Egoic | Transcendent
Model of time: Possibilism | Eternalism
Model of control: Autonomy | Puppethood
Mode of cognitive, mental construct binding: Tight | Loose
Mode of perception: naive realism | metaperception/unreality
Mode of metaphor: literalism | deciphering; consciously mapped to Cybernetics/Heimarmene/Dissociation
Other aspect A: A[Egoic version] | A[Transcendent version]
Other aspect B: B[Egoic version] | B[Transcendent version]


My breakthrough of a couple days ago (or more accurately describing how breakthroughs play out, this is my current breakthrough of this week and now and tomorrow) is this compact, efficient, binary-switching description, with (ideally) single-word labels.

The mind simply flips between these two contrasting sets, each aspect interlinked and yet distinct, mutually supporting: for example, in tightcog, your control feels like Autonomy, operating control on the world that’s modelled with the time-model of Possibilism. The Autonomy-feeling operates in the mental mode or context of a Possibilism model of time, personal control, and possibility; while in contrast, in tightcog, control feels like Puppethood used like a transmission gear controlling the mind’s thinking within a framework or model of time that’s the Eternalism model of time, virtual-only possibility, personal non-control and trans-personal control.

The mind flips simply back and forth between these entire sets. But, assuming psychedelic initiation at puberty, which was normal in the late 20th Century, first for a long time there is only tightcog, and the associated aspects. Then, during the series of initiations, the mind is repeatedly exposed to the loosecog set or system of interconnected, mutually supporting thoughts, feelings, and perceptions, in some sense gaining a permanent memory of these dynamics, so that when the mind returns to tightcog, your knowledge in tightcog is now different than before you were exposed to loosecog. The goddess dips you into the flames in the fireplace each night — each initiation — gradually making you immortal by burning off your mortality.

I reject the premise, as a wishful expectation, that the enlightened person has loosecog constantly. The mind isn’t designed that way. The ancient authorities who used psychedelic mixed wine all the time in their recreational religious funeral-cult banqueting clubs, were not tripping all the time, but only during the initiations or banquet feasts, exactly the same as a late 20th Century Acid Rock lyricist or head. Non-drug-induced mysticism is a myth, a fabrication of official, OSC-only dogmatic censorship-driven scholarship, and in that same sense, the notion that we learn to be in loosecog all the time when we are enlightened, is nothing but fantasy conjecture and baseless wishful thinking.

No one is in loosecog all the time, except irrelevant people: we should reject the ideal or expectation that being enlightened means permanent constant loosecog. The mind normally is designed to only be in loosecog during entheogen use, and then to return to tightcog, only retaining an abstract mental model of what was seen and experienced and thought in loosecog (and will be seen again in the next loosecog banqueting sessions).

— Michael Hoffman, January 13, 2013, based on original research and idea-development since 1985
Copyright (C) 2013 Michael S. Hoffman, http://www.egodeath.com All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 6282 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 14/01/2013
Subject: Re: Efficient theory: compact binary contrast & labels, innovative e
Corrections, and definition of ‘immortal’ or ‘eternal life’

[typo correction:]
B. Mystic-state loosecog perception of [no-]free[-]will asserts a different underlying mechanism and reasoning in support of no-free-will: it states that no-free-will is the case due to seeing the simple clear vision of time as a spacelike dimension.

[clarification:]
Tightcog thinking [naturally generates the freewill view, but when scientists in tightcog do try to think about no-free-will, they don’t] simply say, purely, “no-free-will is the case”. Typically, during the modern era, tightcog[-based scientist who ignored their feeling of freewill and tried to get rid of the illusion of freewill by OSC-based explanation] normally [argued by saying] “no-free-will is the case, because of causal chain determinism”.

[clarifying the table heading format:]

Aspect of cognition: Egoic | Transcendent
—————————– ——— ——————–
Model of time: Possibilism | Eternalism
Model of control: Autonomy | Puppethood
Mode of cognitive, mental construct binding: Tight | Loose
Mode of perception: naive realism | metaperception/unreality
Mode of metaphor: literalism | deciphering; consciously mapped to
Cybernetics/Heimarmene/Dissociation
Other aspect A: A[Egoic version] | A[Transcendent version]
Other aspect B: B[Egoic version] | B[Transcendent version]

[typo correction:]
The Autonomy-feeling operates in the mental mode or context of a Possibilism model of time, personal control, and possibility; while in contrast, in [loose]cog, control feels like Puppethood used like a transmission gear controlling the mind’s thinking within a framework or model of time that’s the Eternalism model of time, virtual-only possibility, personal non-control and trans-personal control.
____________________________________

The mytheme analogy of ‘mortality’ refers to the catastrophic collapse or control-seizure and instability of egoic control power during loosecog; the ego death experience. The mind after multiple initiations and studying the Egodeath theory eventually becomes constant, reaching a steady-state, no longer making fundamental discoveries and changes in your mental model during each loosecog session. The perfected, completed, mature mind flips into loosecog and back to tightcog during each psychedelics-banqueting religious recreation party, but your mental model no longer changes or dies or collapses and is re-constructed: those dynamics of mental model transformation are past; you have been cleansed of sin and death and gained eternal life, a-thantos, no-longer-dying, immortal life; you were a mortal but were passed through the fire and now are a victorious divinized hero.]

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com, January 13, 2013
Group: egodeath Message: 6283 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 14/01/2013
Subject: Heaven & Hell, meaning-flipping metaphor; Naturalism
In the egoic mental model, supportable by the New Testament, which is a meaning-flipping text:

o Heaven is where you go after bodily death if you are a morally good freewill moral control agent, who does morally good things.

o Hell is where you go after bodily death if you are a morally bad freewill moral control agent, who does morally bad things.

In the transcendent mental model, supported by the New Testament:

o Heaven is where you go if you are exposed to loose cognition by the psychedelic traditional Eucharist multiple times and understand no-free-will, the illusory nature of moral control agency. ‘Doing good’ refers to ‘knowing no-free-will’. You go there after ego-death.

o Purgatory is where you are if you haven’t fully transformed your mental model and are still being exposed to loosecog to change your model of your personal control power.

o Hell is the state of being separate from fatedness and the Creator of your worldline. To the enlightened mind, ‘doing evil’, and ‘idol worship’, refers to not understanding no-free-will, but instead holding to the animal youthful notion that you have autonomous power, independent from the Creator.

Sophisticated transcendent use of metaphor can handle such kinds of asymmetries. For example, when you do evil, it’s your fault as a freewill agent. When you do good, it’s due to God, who is all-powerful and you only did good because of receiving grace despite your evil natural nature. That’s the clever Augustine asymmetry, which leads people to assert that Augustinism contradicts itself. It’s a designed, cross-mode, meaning-flipping system, where definitions deliberately shift between egoic meaning-network connections and transcendent meaning-network connections. I figured this out and cover it in my 2006 main article. It has to do with mis-leading; it is a little tricky, because we expect symmetry and constancy in a system; we don’t expect to be tricked and have the meanings, all together, flipped in midstream to throw us off balance.

Similar dynamics of meaning: as The Myth of Free Will complains, freewill is a magical and supernatural irrational notion. No-free-will is rational and naturalist (scientific). But I ask with the New Testament: how then shall we describe your continued use of your freewill circuits, your practical childish animal notions of freewill, your return of your feeling of freewill when the mind returns from loosecog to tightcog? After the mystic peak seizure of no-free-will realization, the restoration of control stability and tightcog and freewill feeling/perspective/thinking, is described as transcendent magic and supernatural, back in the now-enlightened tightcog state. Show me a no-free-will-advocating rationalist, and I will show you someone who acts in a magical supernaturalist way but hasn’t made a coherent story about that fact.

The New Testament makes a coherent story: you start like a rebel magician claiming you have freewill; in loosecog you see no-free-will, the truth; returning to tightcog, you return to the feeling (which often makes the mind forget enlightenment, thus being “re-incarnated” into egoic freewill-morality thinking) of freewill/possibilism/branching future/autonomy: how do you justify your use of the freewill mental structures in your life after you have written a book denouncing freewill as a delusion? The NT way is to say metaphorically “now I am a divinized magician”.

Naturalism-spirituality writers are confused and ignorant: they in fact believe the same thing as the New Testament writers and original audience, and the ancient Greeks (but, not integrated with the *experience* of non-self and no-free-will), but they merely fail to decipher and recognize the metaphors of magic and supernatural. Such writers denounce freewill agency as a “ghost” and a “little god”. Those writers ignorantly think that their position is different than the New Testament or Greek religion.

They have the same position, and, ironically, they steal and borrow the same language, to condemn freewill thinking, as religion uses; but those writers lack the *systematic* deciphering of mythic metaphor: they lack integrity: they steal and incoherently (non-systemically) cherry-pick isolated mythemes without grasping and recognizing that the entire system of religious mythemes asserts — but with some deliberate misleading meaning-flipping — the same view and believe that these supposedly anti-religion, anti-supernaturalism writers assert. These rationalist advocates of no-free-will don’t realize it, but they are true believers in New Testament Christianity and ancient Greek religion, but those writers do a bad job of it; they are half-digested; they are still half-insane, half-incoherent.

A full comprehension, full purification of your thinking, requires not what they do — cherry-picking an occasional “funny” “clever” stealing of the analogy ‘exorcise’ freewill illusion. These nominally “anti-religion”, “anti-supernaturalism” writers borrow metaphor without seeing what they are doing: they are *agreeing* with the metaphors, and they are irrationally inconsistently unconsciously *assuming* that the New Testament system instead means these metaphors literally.

These writers are headed toward having no difference between their belief system and that of the Bible, except that these writers 1) lack the integrated loosecog state, and 2) falsely and ignorantly project their own literalism or literalism-assumptions onto the Bible, while privileging themselves as being so intelligent that they only take the supernatural Bible elements metaphorically.

These writers should be recognizing as I decoded, that the Bible expresses a 2-mode meaning-flipping dynamic of understanding and of recognition, systematically — not static, incomplete, incoherent, half-digested, like these writers who borrow “humorously” words like ‘exorcise’ and fail to recognize that they are following the meaning-path that the Bible already carved out. They are re-inventing, re-discovering the Bible’s meaning-system, *piecemeal* without realizing they should instead be asking what I asked since 1986, “How is the Bible expressing no-free-will — and the mental model *transformation* from natural animal childish freewill thinking to no-free-will, by systematic metaphor analogy?”

These writers fail to describe a system by which society first supports the child in forming their freewill thinking and then formally routinely sacrificing that delusion to teach and show no-free-will. That’s what religion is. But instead these writers don’t cover the concern, the consideration, of first teaching freewill before advocating to all people of all ages no-free-will. These writers only think in terms of always teaching no-free-will to everyone in the society without thinking about whether young children should be taught no-free-will.

http://www.naturalism.org/freewill1.htm
Thomas W. Clark wrote:
“Breer also addresses the supposition that even if a belief in free will is false, it is necessary for maintaining the social order:
…..”Despite the obvious restraining influence of guilt and pride, it can be argued that free agency represents one of the primary sources of the very anti-social sentiments against which civilization must defend itself. Teaching our children that they cause their own behavior and thus must take responsibility for it, leaves them open to far more than guilt. For those who do not succeed in love and work, a belief in agency invites self-loathing, bitterness, isolation, and spite. “

Does Naturalism advocate teaching young children no-free-will? The tradition in human history is likely to be like the ancient Greeks: freewill is for children; young adults should be initiated into no-free-will when growing a beard. That also fits our own de-facto 20th Century convention of young adults using entheogens. At young adulthood, the mind is drawn to entheogens; this fits with the model of psychospiritual development: first you develop ego and freewill, and then when that’s done, you sacrifice your limitation to that, and undergo initiation and sacrifice of the youthful self, and then form a more encompassing, multi-state mental model.


These writers have many of these elements, sprinkled throughout Cris Evatt’s book The Myth of No-Free-Will. But they are a long way short of first, recognizing that the NT is metaphor, and beyond that, identifying and deciphering exactly how the NT is metaphor and how all religious myth is metaphor that already has been asserting forever, what these ignorant “new” writers are “creating” as an “alternative” to “supernaturalist” religion. These rationalist advocates of no-free-will are piecemeal, slowly, unawares, while claiming otherwise, in fact re-inventing redundantly what has already been invented: Greek, Roman, Jewish, Christian religious understanding and metaphor-mapping.

These OSC-limited no-free-will advocates, lacking systemic literacy of mythemes, claim to provide an alternative to supernaturalist religions, but they only show, by making that false claim, that they are merely illiterate about mythic metaphor and analogy. How many supernaturalist words are these blind writers going to steal before they realize they are preaching the gospel of New Testament Christianity, and just didn’t know it? They show themselves to be ignorant blind dense fools, in their assumption and misreading — falling headlong into the meaning-flipping trap that Hellenistic metaphor laid for them — that the ancient religionists are ignorant blind dense fools.

We finally are faced with the issue of whether to teach young children no-free-will, or whether we love and cherish and protect youthful innocent delusion of freewill: shield the eyes of the children lest they be sacrificed before their time and we lose them to Hades too quickly.

— Michael Hoffman, January 13, 2013, based on original research and idea-development since 1985
Copyright (C) 2013 Michael S. Hoffman, http://www.egodeath.com All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 6284 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 14/01/2013
Subject: Re: Heaven & Hell, meaning-flipping metaphor; Naturalism
[historical clarification]
They are re-inventing, re-discovering the Bible’s meaning-system, *piecemeal* without realizing they should instead be asking what I asked since [1988 and especially in 2001], “How is the Bible expressing no-free-will — and the mental model *transformation* from natural animal childish freewill thinking to no-free-will, by systematic metaphor analogy?”


Since 1985 I’ve been asking “How is the Bible expressing transcendent knowledge?” I had a limited theory of transcendent knowledge and a limited theory of the Bible in 1985, when I began developing the Egodeath theory. I went to a Lifespring encounter training in Spring 1985, and was exposed to A Course in Miracles. My father was a leader in these activities, and in Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychology.

— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 6285 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 14/01/2013
Subject: Re: Intellectual autobiography & origins of Egodeath theory
I went to a Lifespring encounter training in Spring 1985, and was exposed to A Course in Miracles. My father was a leader in these activities, and in Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychology.

Since 1985 I’ve been asking “How is the Bible expressing transcendent knowledge?” I had a limited theory of transcendent knowledge and a limited theory of the Bible in 1985, when I began developing the Egodeath theory.

Sometime in June 1986 to Spring 1987, I wondered what psychedelic was meant by the “scrolls” eaten in Revelation. I was entirely unaware of any entheogen books or articles; I didn’t really encounter entheogen history scholarship until quite late, 1999. Untainted by reading or conversations, I independently recognized and discovered the scrolls metaphor allusion to psychedelics in Revelation; I discovered and recognized the entheogen basis of the Bible independently, thus corroborating many traditional mystics across history, and demonstrating that myth is effective in communicating and continuing the traditional mystic practice and language of entheogenic mystic altered state metaphor.

I asked since 1988 and especially in 2001, “How is the Bible expressing no-free-will — and the mental model *transformation* from natural animal childish freewill thinking to no-free-will, by systematic metaphor analogy?”

— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 6286 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 14/01/2013
Subject: Re: Bks: Self illus., no-free-will, cog neuroTheol, neoPsych, no-Jes
This is my review of The Myth of Free Will, by Cris Evatt.

The Myth of Free Will (3rd Edition)
Cris Evatt
http://amazon.com/o/asin/0970818181
August 2010
140 pages

Unknowingly re-creates the esoteric layer of mythic religion

This book is well-written, intelligently presented, extremely clear in presentation, and presents the promised content. The author’s passages generally alternate with the passages from other writers. This book is a clear presentation of no-free-will advocacy as conceptualized only in the ordinary, non-mystical state of consciousness, based on speculation and abstract reasoning about causal-chain determinism and materialist neuroscience. This book is well-written, within its limitations of scope. She is clear in communicating the points she intends to make. It is easy to understand what she is asserting, and to see where the boundaries of her thought are.

I have a library of books on free will & determinism, Reformed Theology, theory of time, personal agency, cognitive science/philosophy, and connected topics. I highly recommend this book, as a survey of current conventional thinking about no-free-will, mostly as an isolated field — with my deep caveats here, based on my decades of theory development. I’m glad she dismisses quantum physics (the last-ditch shelter for the freewill delusion) as irrelevant. She doesn’t mention the oft-mentioned manyworlds view of QM; she silently assumes a single future, though this is a major pivotal distinction in models of spacetime.

When I made a theory of metaphysical enlightenment that was, unfortunately, based on no-free-will (surely a severe drawback and deal-breaker for popular reception), I readied myself to face enormous disagreement in Philosophy and Religion and Cognitive Science, but to my great surprise, most writers throughout history already agree about no-free-will. This survey book confirmed that realization further. It turns out that what’s been lacking in is not belief in no-free-will, but rather, thoroughgoing cross-field connections — this book does little to remedy that lack of cross-field connections. These authors are too insular, reading each other.

Despite her exposure to Ramesh Balsekar, who rightly explains no-free-will along with no-self in Advaita Vedanta, Evatt has a too-narrow, uninformed assumption that religion asserts freewill. She steals fragments of mythic themes from religion, and then misrepresents religion as monolithically asserting freewill, thus misrepresenting the mystical content of religion. The result is an outsider’s blind groping in the dark toward understanding how to interpret religious mythemes. She references fragmented, disconnected bits and pieces of religion. She has no coherent theory of religion, but only a sub-academic, late modern-era folk model of religion and its assertions of no-free-will.

If Evatt is actually going to shut out a real engagement with mythic or supernaturalist religion from her book, she needs to stop making claims that her view is different and better than such religion. She compares her own defined view to exoteric Christianity, ignoring esoteric, no-free-will Christianity. When we reject Christianity as too confusing outside its Hellenistic context of myth and mystery initiation and outside the associated social-political context, we need to comprehend the esoteric meaning in that system which we are rejecting and claiming to improve upon: experience no-free-will. I’ve shown that New Testament Christianity is a systematic two-state meaning-flipping system; there’s more than just pop naive exoteric freewillist Christianity.

She ought to doubt Sam Harris’ (page 70) uncritical assumption that the meaning of ‘sin’ is single, rather than two distinct meanings, surface and hidden then revealed, in the Bible. Such writers roll out the outsider’s view of religion and then complain that the result collapses upon critique — as if the Hellenistic writers and Bible authors didn’t know that and must have been as crude thinkers as these writers. If the view of the Bible’s religion that you present is bad, that can’t be the right way to read it; blame yourself: open your eye and blame your own inability to read mystic myth right.

Evatt doesn’t deliberately, intelligently engage with religious myth: her titles start with “Myth and (Topic)”; she isn’t qualified to critique the use of myth, including the mythemes of ‘magic’, ‘miracle’, and the ‘supernatural’, in religion; she takes a careless attitude when handling mythemes such as ‘exorcise’ and “little gods”. The book has only fragmented bits of the Possibilism and Eternalism models of time (such as, the future, your future path, already exists); there’s no discussion of spacetime worms or worldline snakes, which I’ve systematically revealed in religion.

Her book doesn’t include contributions from religionists, such as theologians. She ought to have included theologians. By not formally including religion or mysticism in her book, we end up with malformed caricature of religion and mystic experiencing, that misrepresents it. Which is rather a disaster, given that she ends up redundantly re-inventing and re-discovering religion, unknowingly, while claiming to bring an alternative. She needs to specify how her view is truly different than existing religion, and cover the history of no-free-will in religion.

This book assumes a particular mechanism behind no-free-will: causal-chain determinism: it repeatedly asserts that no-free-will is the case, because of causal-chain determinism. She isn’t aware of mystic themes of experiencing time as a spacelike dimension, which asserts no-free-will from a different basis than causal-chain determinism.

Evatt introduces Naturalism, which is a kind of religion that doesn’t involve supernaturalist themes or magical themes. Evatt (and apparently Naturalism) unconsciously asserts the same thing as a interpretation of New Testament Christianity, which I detail in terms of Hellenistic meaning-flipping which in the original mode implies freewill morality, and in the regenerated mode asserts no-free-will as purification and the truth about moral agency.

She says that no-free-will is safe, that we can rely on our habitual thinking. That is dangerously not true when possessed by spirituality consciousness. The fears that she dismisses, expressed by freewill advocates, the “worst case scenario” (her term) you can imagine, is fully constructible in the unchained imagination guided by God only knows what hidden, uncontrollable directors of the mind’s thoughts and intentions. The no-free-will advocates she surveys haven’t engaged in full-on battle with this fear of the forces they inadvertently mention and casually dismiss, even though they mention, in fragmented fashion, key religious mythic words such as ‘fear’, ‘madness’, and ‘battle’.

Evatt describes the severe problems of the mystic no-free-will experience without realizing it. “Working to live without the freewill illusion provokes a simple fear: what if I behave terribly badly? What if I give up all moral values and do terrible things? How can I make moral decisions if there’s no one inside who is responsible? This natural fear is why few people try to live without free will; they fear that if they stop believing in a self who chooses to do the right thing, then they will run amok and all hell will break loose. Is the fear justified? I suspect not. This common fear is no excuse to carry on living in delusion.” (page 11) Note her mention of mythic, religious, and mystic terms, in unsystematic isolation, to describe views about no-free-will (“all hell will break loose”, “living in delusion”).

She critiques “optimism bias” (page 88), but the rationalist no-free-will advocate, when in the mystic frame of mind, will be made to understand why one would ever pray for regaining optimism bias, which has been discarded. Famous last words of the zealous atheist no-free-will writer: “Because a concept’s worst-case scenarios display minimal similarity to the category ideal, the brain routinely distances them from active consideration. So it’s a struggle for the brain to bring up bad scenarios because it consigns them to the fringes of consciousness. In other words, the brain won’t take us there. It doesn’t want to get into trouble.” (page 88). Bible mystics laugh at this sure-to-fail naivete; trying to depend on our reliable animalish ruts of thinking fails when in the mystic state, and getting rid of optimism bias brings fatal instability of control.

Evatt (and Naturalism) doesn’t integrate the intense mystic altered state, and is unaware that that traditional Eucharist-induced state of consciousness enables the mind to actually vividly experience no-free-will. When listing the dangers of drugs on page 66, Evatt doesn’t mention the dangers of entheogens, such as the terrifying, fascinating, numinous experience of the threat of loss of control due to experiencing no-free-will. Evatt dangerously misrepresents and underestimates the dangers of fully and vividly believing in no-free-will, while the Bible, in contrast, presents fear and trembling. She neglects to cover the use of visionary plants in the so-called “Naturalistic” religion she introduces, leaving the reader to do that legwork instead, though college students aren’t good at researching the literature.

She could graduate from cutesy cartoons about free will and god and angels, to Reformed Theology — she’d do well to preserve her comic joking aspect, and incorporate the tragic or serious engagement with no-free-will in religion and cultural history. She uses magical and supernatural themes herself — inconsistently, unsystematically, carelessly, incoherently. She inconsistently and unsystematically steals or cherry-picks, “humorously”, words from supernaturalist-styled, magic-styled religion (“little gods”, ‘exorcise’), without recognizing that this is the same position as New Testament Christianity.

“Most scientists and philosophers intellectually reject the reality of free will while carrying on their lives “as if” it exists.” (page 12). But that continued reliance on free will, which she encourages, is like magic supernaturalism. These writers just don’t make the connections to see that they are re-constructing an already available intelligent reading of Bible religion. Evatt and Naturalism inconsistently claim to reject supernaturalist themes, but then, hypocritically, in disorganized, fragmented fashion, borrow or steal those same metaphors to clarify this supposedly “new” and “modern” position of no-free-will.

Before people claim that their “new realization” of no-free-will is new and evolved, they ought to first recognize the history of no-free-will across every field, and how religious mythemes are exactly designed to depict exactly what these unseeing authors purport to bring, supposedly as an alternative to supernatural-themed religion.

This book doesn’t describe the process of initiation into no-free-will, how to formally sacrifice children’s freewill self-identity, or how to exorcise the freewill demon. The book doesn’t present an initiation practice of transformation of one’s mental model from natural animal freewill thinking to rational no-free-will thinking, and thus is inferior to the New Testament and Greek myth and mystery religion. This book asserts that we have the feeling of freewill, and ought to change our thinking to no-free-will. It is sprinkled with descriptions of arguments worded in terms of ‘fear’, ‘terror’, ‘objection’, ‘apprehension’ about loss of control; ‘exorcise’, ‘little gods’ — and yet this is claimed to be a different system than the Bible.

My work shows how mythemes in Hellenistic and Bible fiction can be interpreted and deciphered systematically as already asserting, through intelligently recognized metaphor (revealing the meaning), what this book asserts and describes in half-digested, unsystematic cherry-picking of those same metaphors: that freewill thinking needs to be “exorcised” (her term) to “purify” (I think her book uses this term) our thinking and make it consistent, that we are off-the-mark in our original thinking as if we are “little gods” (her term). This book asserts that freewill is magic and supernatural thinking — and this book assumes that metaphor-using religion disagrees. Actually, metaphor deciphering is what’s needed, as I have systematically deciphered.

Despite this book being a survey showing how many people assert no-free-will, Evatt doesn’t realize: the problem isn’t convincing more people of no-free-will; the problem at hand is to intelligently make the connections across all the fields, especially religion, myth, and the mystic state, which gives an overwhelming experience of no-free-will, rather than being limited like this book, to armchair speculation in the non-religious mode of consciousness which scholars today normally mistakenly take for granted unconsciously, as normal.

Evatt asserts half-truths constantly: she says that “we feel free will”, but that’s only conditionally true; actually we feel free will when we are in the ordinary state of consciousness, but instead we feel and even perceive no-free-will when we are in the mystic state which is the religious state of consciousness, as my work has systematically explained. This book has helped identify the specific differences between conventional no-free-will thinking within rationalist fields that assume the ordinary state of consciousness, and my transdisciplinary, multi-state theory of no-free-will.

Evatt is an example confirming that “anti-religion” rationalists have gravely inadequate (exoteric-only) notions of what religion actually asserts and amounts to, whether conventional official books on religion or books about mystic and esoteric religion — even as they pluck isolated themes from that same corpus of thinking and experiencing.

— Michael Hoffman, January 13, 2013, based on original research and idea-development since 1985
Copyright (C) 2013 Michael S. Hoffman, http://www.egodeath.com All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 6287 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 14/01/2013
Subject: Re: Bks: Self illus., no-free-will, cog neuroTheol, neoPsych, no-Jes
[clarification]
Evatt is an example confirming that “anti-religion” rationalists have gravely inadequate (exoteric-only) notions of what religion actually asserts and amounts to [ — that they haven’t read the books], whether conventional official books on religion or books about mystic and esoteric religion — even as they pluck isolated themes from that same corpus of thinking and experiencing.
Group: egodeath Message: 6288 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 15/01/2013
Subject: Re: Bks: Self illus., no-free-will, cog neuroTheol, neoPsych, no-Jes
[typo correction; deleted ‘no-‘]
She references fragmented, disconnected bits and pieces of religion. She has no coherent theory of religion, but only a sub-academic, late modern-era folk model of religion and its assertions of []free-will.


Evatt titles her book “The Myth of Free Will”. Like the words uncomprehendingly uttered by Odysseus, ominous foreboding, she almost utters profound truths but without realizing it, lacking the connections; she doesn’t understand what she is almost saying: her title suggests what would be a profound title: “Myth Is About Experiencing No-Free-Will”. Myth is of (about) free will: as in, the will isn’t free; Myth is about the realization that free will is a myth. Myth describes the experiential realization that free will is a myth.

Evatt’s title is “The Myth of Free Will” and the cover shows a great illustration of the forking crossroads, she is oblivious to the sacred ground of ancient Greek myth she is treading on foolishly like Odysseus. Myth is exactly that: myth is about the experience-induced transformation from freewill thinking to no-free-will realization. The god of the crossroads. Janus and Hermes.

Extract the points, revelations, takeaways, implication from my review of the book The Myth of Free Will.

Myth is about Free Will. Her title is a grand irony, like Odysseus saying ominous words he doesn’t know the meaning of them.

Myth describes the experiential process of transformation of the mental model from the natural freewill premise (which is the original state of sin) to the rational, no-free-will realization.

— Michael Hoffman, January 14, 2013, based on original theorizing since 1985
Group: egodeath Message: 6289 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 15/01/2013
Subject: Re: Best cognitive-loosening agents & techniques
I provide a Cognitive Science approach toward term usage regarding entheogens. The word or metaphor of ‘acid’ generally means entheogen, means (as the active mechanism) a cognitive-binding loosening agent. Psycholytic chemicals, in visionary plants. A good term per the Egodeath theory is psycholytic, defined as mental-connection dissolving, or mind loosening; a cognitive loosening chemical, a chemical that loosens mental construct matrix binding, a chemical that loosens mental construct relationship matrix binding.

lysis: In the field of Biochemistry, the *dissolution* of cells, disrupting the cell membrane. Dissolve and coagulate. Some connections are broken to some degree. A few connections are slightly loosened, or all connections are completely broken. Most useful for fastest, most efficient mental model transformation is the middle zones, where some connections are partly loosened or partly broken. If too loose, cannot remember or construct the new (albeit innate in the mind’s potential) mental model of self, time, control, and possibility. If too tight, not loose enough, the alternative perception isn’t seen or felt. There is a sweet spot zone.

Cognitive association binding intensity can be divided into these 5 zones:

Too loose
Very loose but useful
Medium loose
Slightly loose, but useful
Too tight

Mental model transformation occurs by ingesting a chemical that, like an acid for cognition, loosens cognitive binding, mental construct association binding. Thus we could well describe all entheogens as ‘acid’. Anything we say about LSD can be said the same for other entheogens; therefore, we can simply write ‘acid’ whenever we might have to decide whether to write: psychedelic, entheogen, mushrooms, visionary plants, 4-HO-DiPT, Salvia, Mescaline, Peyote, DMT, or Ayahuasca. Cannabis potentiates acid, and the point is the acid effect.

“Dissolve and coagulate” in the Esotericism era is exactly analogous to the term ‘acid’ in 1960s. Why did they say “dissolve and coagulate”? Because that’s exactly what their elixir does to cognitive associations, intensely tangibly so. You dissolve, your world dissolves, your mind dissolves, your perception dissolves, your control dissolves, and then, you experience it all coagulate again back into tightcog, now bringing some % remembering what you mystically un-forgot during the peak window of the acid-dissolved cognitive state. What a coincidence it is not, ‘acid’ in 1960s and “dissolve and coagulate” in the Esotericism era of visionary-plant alchemy.

— Michael Hoffman, January 14, 2013, based on original research and idea-development since 1985
Copyright (C) 2013 Michael S. Hoffman, http://www.egodeath.com All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 6290 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 15/01/2013
Subject: Re: Paul’s road conversion = Balaam’s donkey conversion
The Many Faces of Biblical Humor
David Peters
http://amazon.com/o/asin/0761839585

http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/13252.aspx
Book review by Tony Fitzpatrick: excerpt condensed by Michael Hoffman

“Peters’ favorite story is Balaam and the Talking Donkey. Someone [the bad king, against Israel] calls on Balaam to prophesy against the children of Israel and Moses for coming out of Egypt. God tells Balaam not to go, but he’s offered a lot of money, so he goes anyway. On the road, the donkey that he’s riding sees an angel of God with a sword [angel of death, you must die ego death to get past the flaming fire gateway, burning off your moral transient failable destructible volatile self-concept; egoic thinking can only last until the mind is exposed to loosecog, then the illusion collapses and can never be taken for reality again -mh], and the donkey stops.”

“Balaam can’t see the angel, and he beats the donkey. Farther down the road, the donkey sees the angel again and stops between two walls, crushing Balaam’s foot. There is no way getting around the angel [pre-set worldline -mh], so the donkey lies down. God enables the donkey to talk: `What did I do to make you beat me these three times? Have I ever done anything like this before?’ God enables Balaam to see the angel, and the donkey says `If I were you, I’d take better stock of the situation.’ When Balaam sees the situation for what it is, he faints.”

Balaam faints (control seizure).
His foot is crushed (the foundation of what he depends on for control-power collapses). See my posts on leg, foot, sitting, carried, riding.

— Michael Hoffman, January 14, 2013, based on theory work since 1985
Group: egodeath Message: 6291 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 15/01/2013
Subject: Re: Intellectual autobiography & origins of Egodeath theory
Corroborating what I wrote, that the Egodeath theory is the crown jewel product of the Psychedelic 80s, Ben Sessa’s British book The Psychedelic Renaissance claims that 1988 was the Second Summer of Love.
http://amazon.com/o/asin/1908995009

My work on the Egodeath theory started in 1985.
My core breakthrough was January 1988.
My project announcement party (I have the videotape showing my college friends and presentation) was Summer 1988.
My Minnesota first draft manuscript was August 1988.
By the end of 1988, my article draft and notes covered all of the core theory as reflected in my 1997 and 2006 articles.

At the start of 1988, I didn’t have the core theory, though I was very near to having it.
At the end of 1988, I had the complete core theory, and many of the mythic elements that would fully come together in November 2001.

Thus the Egodeath core theory was created and developed essentially as such, as the core theory, defining some 12 principles forming the backbone/main structure, during 1988. It had roots back to 1985 and earlier, as everything has roots. But the Theory as such, recognizable fully as the Egodeath theory, was formed during 1988. If I pick one point in time, that the Theory is a product of, it would have to be January 11, 1988, before the 2nd Summer of Love; but, the announcement party was Summer 1988. The Egodeath theory is a product of 1988.

I actually think of 1987 as the 2nd Summer of Love, because I was in the midst of the main ramp-up toward breakthrough, writing in my Red Binder, the high point of my hand writing, my idea development notes. I was listening to the new album that everyone was anticipating in Summer 1987: Sgt. Pepper was finally released! That was a really big deal. We could finally hear the album, a wormhole into Abbey Road Studios opened up and we were transported into it. I was listening to the new albums I got, pristine: Her Satanic Majesty’s Request, by the Stones; Donovan.

In 1988 I also started serious work on electric lyre equipment usage techniques, and came really close to figuring it out then, but just slightly missed making the connections, then had full breakthrough in that field in 2012.

My work from the 1980s:
January 1988 (core theory)
November 2001 (myth/history theory-extension)

— Michael Hoffman, January 14, 2013

Egodeath Yahoo Group – Digest 170: 2016-09-18

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Group: egodeath Message: 9156 From: egodeath Date: 18/09/2016
Subject: Re: The Great Robbing and Suppressing of Psychedelics
Group: egodeath Message: 9158 From: egodeath Date: 18/09/2016
Subject: Re: The Great Robbing and Suppressing of Psychedelics
Group: egodeath Message: 9159 From: egodeath Date: 18/09/2016
Subject: The Minimal vs. Maximal psychedelic models of religion
Group: egodeath Message: 9160 From: egodeath Date: 18/09/2016
Subject: Re: The Minimal vs. Maximal psychedelic models of religion
Group: egodeath Message: 9161 From: egodeath Date: 18/09/2016
Subject: Re: The Minimal vs. Maximal psychedelic models of religion
Group: egodeath Message: 9162 From: egodeath Date: 18/09/2016
Subject: Re: The Great Robbing and Suppressing of Psychedelics
Group: egodeath Message: 9163 From: egodeath Date: 18/09/2016
Subject: Re: The Great Robbing and Suppressing of Psychedelics
Group: egodeath Message: 9164 From: egodeath Date: 18/09/2016
Subject: Re: The Great Robbing and Suppressing of Psychedelics
Group: egodeath Message: 9165 From: egodeath Date: 18/09/2016
Subject: Re: The religion of Christian Cybernetic Egodeath
Group: egodeath Message: 9166 From: egodeath Date: 19/09/2016
Subject: Power of Ideas: Esotericism, Historicism (Hanegraaff)
Group: egodeath Message: 9169 From: egodeath Date: 19/09/2016
Subject: Re: Power of Ideas: Esotericism, Historicism (Hanegraaff)
Group: egodeath Message: 9171 From: egodeath Date: 19/09/2016
Subject: Re: Power of Ideas: Esotericism, Historicism (Hanegraaff)
Group: egodeath Message: 9173 From: egodeath Date: 19/09/2016
Subject: Enlightenment = Permanent Psychosis
Group: egodeath Message: 9174 From: egodeath Date: 19/09/2016
Subject: Hanegraaff’s Academic Suicide
Group: egodeath Message: 9177 From: egodeath Date: 20/09/2016
Subject: Re: Enlightenment = Permanent Psychosis
Group: egodeath Message: 9178 From: egodeath Date: 20/09/2016
Subject: Be Irvin compatible
Group: egodeath Message: 9179 From: egodeath Date: 20/09/2016
Subject: Re: Be Irvin compatible
Group: egodeath Message: 9180 From: egodeath Date: 20/09/2016
Subject: Re: Be Irvin compatible
Group: egodeath Message: 9181 From: egodeath Date: 20/09/2016
Subject: Re: Enlightenment = Permanent Psychosis
Group: egodeath Message: 9182 From: egodeath Date: 21/09/2016
Subject: Re: Transcendent Knowledge podcast commentary
Group: egodeath Message: 9183 From: egodeath Date: 21/09/2016
Subject: Re: Hanegraaff’s Academic Suicide
Group: egodeath Message: 9185 From: egodeath Date: 21/09/2016
Subject: Re: Enlightenment = Permanent Psychosis
Group: egodeath Message: 9186 From: egodeath Date: 21/09/2016
Subject: Re: Hanegraaff article: Entheogenic Esotericism
Group: egodeath Message: 9187 From: egodeath Date: 22/09/2016
Subject: Re: Bk: Esotericism and the Academy (Hanegraaff)
Group: egodeath Message: 9188 From: egodeath Date: 22/09/2016
Subject: Re: The religion of Christian Cybernetic Egodeath
Group: egodeath Message: 9190 From: egodeath Date: 22/09/2016
Subject: Re: The religion of Christian Cybernetic Egodeath
Group: egodeath Message: 9191 From: egodeath Date: 22/09/2016
Subject: Re: Hanegraaff’s Academic Suicide
Group: egodeath Message: 9192 From: egodeath Date: 22/09/2016
Subject: Re: Bk: Esotericism and the Academy (Hanegraaff)
Group: egodeath Message: 9193 From: egodeath Date: 22/09/2016
Subject: Re: The religion of Christian Cybernetic Egodeath
Group: egodeath Message: 9194 From: egodeath Date: 22/09/2016
Subject: Re: Bk: Esotericism and the Academy (Hanegraaff)
Group: egodeath Message: 9195 From: egodeath Date: 22/09/2016
Subject: Re: Bk: Esotericism and the Academy (Hanegraaff)
Group: egodeath Message: 9196 From: egodeath Date: 22/09/2016
Subject: Re: Bk: Esotericism and the Academy (Hanegraaff)
Group: egodeath Message: 9198 From: egodeath Date: 22/09/2016
Subject: Re: Power of Ideas: Esotericism, Historicism (Hanegraaff)
Group: egodeath Message: 9199 From: egodeath Date: 23/09/2016
Subject: Re: Power of Ideas: Esotericism, Historicism (Hanegraaff)
Group: egodeath Message: 9204 From: egodeath Date: 23/09/2016
Subject: Re: One-foot limping king lost sandal
Group: egodeath Message: 9206 From: egodeath Date: 23/09/2016
Subject: Re: One-foot limping king lost sandal
Group: egodeath Message: 9207 From: egodeath Date: 23/09/2016
Subject: Re: One-foot limping king lost sandal
Group: egodeath Message: 9208 From: egodeath Date: 23/09/2016
Subject: Re: Power of Ideas: Esotericism, Historicism (Hanegraaff)
Group: egodeath Message: 9209 From: egodeath Date: 23/09/2016
Subject: Re: Power of Ideas: Esotericism, Historicism (Hanegraaff)
Group: egodeath Message: 9211 From: egodeath Date: 23/09/2016
Subject: Re: Bk: Esotericism and the Academy (Hanegraaff)
Group: egodeath Message: 9212 From: egodeath Date: 23/09/2016
Subject: Decoded: The Forbidden Fruit
Group: egodeath Message: 9217 From: egodeath Date: 24/09/2016
Subject: Gnosis communicable, Psychedelics technique discipline
Group: egodeath Message: 9218 From: egodeath Date: 24/09/2016
Subject: Re: Enlightenment = Permanent Psychosis
Group: egodeath Message: 9219 From: egodeath Date: 24/09/2016
Subject: Re: Enlightenment = Permanent Psychosis
Group: egodeath Message: 9221 From: egodeath Date: 24/09/2016
Subject: Re: Enlightenment = Permanent Psychosis
Group: egodeath Message: 9222 From: egodeath Date: 24/09/2016
Subject: Hanegraaff incoherently demonizes Religionism
Group: egodeath Message: 9225 From: egodeath Date: 24/09/2016
Subject: Re: Hanegraaff incoherently demonizes Religionism
Group: egodeath Message: 9228 From: egodeath Date: 24/09/2016
Subject: Re: Hanegraaff incoherently demonizes Religionism
Group: egodeath Message: 9230 From: egodeath Date: 25/09/2016
Subject: Re: Hanegraaff incoherently demonizes Religionism
Group: egodeath Message: 9232 From: egodeath Date: 25/09/2016
Subject: Re: Hanegraaff incoherently demonizes Religionism



Group: egodeath Message: 9156 From: egodeath Date: 18/09/2016
Subject: Re: The Great Robbing and Suppressing of Psychedelics
Mushrooms vs. Meditation, getting the relationship right

Mushrooms vs. Meditation — getting the relationship right, unlike everything written in Zig Zag Zen, which is entrenched unconsciously in the assumption-set of the *Moderate* Psychedelic Theory of Religion and Culture.

The Moderate psychedelic theory of religion assumes that normal religion is non-psychedelic, and that deviant religion (religion+, enhanced religion; religion with something alien added) is psychedelic.

Abbreviations:
the Maximal psychedelic theory =
the Maximal psychedelic theory of religion and culture

the Moderate psychedelic theory =
the Moderate psychedelic theory of religion and culture

As an alternative to the divide-into-3 approach of “minimal/moderate/maximal”, it is helpful to divide into simply 2: minimal/moderate, on the one side, and maximal, on the other. Two options: diminish psychedelics (old terminology: the entheogen diminishment fallacies; implied new terminology would then be:

the psychedelics diminishment fallacies.

There is no question about it: certainly having available the term ‘entheogen’ enables more abbreviated, efficient writing THAT MIGHT TRULY BE APPROPRIATE FOR THEORIZING.

Having separate words ‘psychedelics’ and ‘entheogens’ might be dictated by the target domain being accurately modeled. Even if the chorus of demon-possessed “entheogen advocates” are now agreeing among their band of demon-scholars that they are going to push Ott off a cliff and steal his angels’ dictionary and rewrite it to insert demon-worship in the angels’ dictionary — they have agreed to mean, among themselves, when they say ‘entheogen’, they now really mean “nondrug meditation considered historically normal as per the Minimal/Moderate entheogen theory.

There is little difference between the Minimal and Moderate theories of {psychedelics in religious history}. There is great difference, which I am focusing on modelling, between the Moderate vs. Maximal theories. My fight is against, all at once, the Minimal & Moderate theories. They make the same mistakes, regardless of whether they adhere to the Minimal or Moderate views. It is not necessary to differentiate:
contrast Minimal vs. Maximal
contrast Moderate vs. Maximal

It is totally sufficient to differentiate:
contrast Minimal/Moderate vs. Maximal.

thus we can leverage powerful:

high/low. = eso/exo.

high = the Maximal Psychedelic Theory of Religion and Culture
low = the Minimal and/or Moderate Psychedelic Theory of Religion and Culture

This loses a little precision, and gains much clarity and theory power, a substantial net gain in Thagard units. I am feeling that the work of differentiating Minimal vs. Moderate is weakening the Theory, the clarity. I am standardizing on inserting my outdated ideas into a new framework prioritizing the high/low distinction.

There are 2 kinds of people, because there are 2 modes of thinking.

In the low mode of thinking, scholars assert either the Minimal or Moderate psychedelic theory of religion and culture.

The word ‘entheogen’ feels clearer than ‘psychedelic’, there, despite the demons’ shenanigans by Jesse Dunstad Hanegraaff, of falsely including meditation and the infinite list of placebo/avoidance techniques in the word ‘entheogens’:

In the low mode of thinking, scholars assert either the Minimal or Moderate entheogen theory of religion and culture.


Define every idea or domain in terms of the two ways of thinking, high vs. low.

This provides the ideal basis for criticizing and analyzing poor thinking vs. superior thinking.

According to the exoteric view:
meditation (silently assumed nondrug) is the authority, the point of reference
mushrooms added, is a deviation, or an enhancement added to the normal genuine meditation, which is nondrug

According to the esoteric view:
mushrooms are the authority point of reference
meditation can be added to that, and can be done without the mushroom state, but meditation doesn’t trigger loose cognitive binding and widespread mental transformation.


According to the exoteric view:
Meditation, with Mushrooms added

According to the esoteric view:
Nondrug meditation is Meditation done outside the Mushroom cognitive state.
Mushrooms, with Meditation added


‘cognitive’ vs. ‘mental’: not simply synonyms, nor is ‘cognitive’ merely posturing scientism-speak for ‘mental’. mental construct processing, is not same as analyzing the mind and experiencing in terms of “thinking”.

My concept of mental construct processing (from 4/87) is designed to cover not only thinking, but everythink in awareness.

‘entheogens’ vs. ‘psychedelics’.

The story of reality according to the exoteric view:

The story of reality according to the esoteric view:

‘exo’ means outer. ‘eso’ means inner.

There is nothing special about the labels ‘exo’ and ‘eso’, and there must be better terms; these terms come from outside the Egodeath theory.

When did I first start emphasizing as an organizing scheme, “the two ways of thinking”?

Since 1986: egoic thinking vs. transcendent thinking.

That naturally later around 2000 mapped onto Freke & Gandy’s The Jesus Mysteries’ use of ‘exoteric’ vs. ‘esoteric’, which pointed back to Pagels’ use of ‘Orthodox vs. Gnostic’.

egoic thinking ~= exoteric ~= Orthodox
transcendent thinking ~= esoteric ~= Gnostic

I picked recently the characterizing contrast “high vs. low” instead of “inner vs. outer”, because I wanted to more clearly disparage the “regular” nondrug version of each field, and more clearly “elevate” ie advocate, the psychedelic version of each field.

When I write “psychedelic”, I generally don’t mean a surface styling, but far more hardcore I mean thoroughly based in the cognitive (experiential + mental) state that specifically and literally results from ingesting psychedelic drug chemicals such as acid and shrooms.

Each field has its low and high version.

Each topic has two versions:
genuine/real/authentic/durable/ high/invincible/source
vs.
pseudo/ersatz/fake/imitation/ counterfeit/vulnerable/low/ inauthentic/bunk/derivative

Each topic has its low and high understanding.

Each topic has its nondrug conceptualization and its psilocybin-based conceptualization. low = nondrug (non-psychedelics informed).

high = informed by intense psychotomimetic psychedelic drug chemicals (psilocybin and LSD), which is how the the intense mystic altered state is induced throughout our religion’s history.

“real vs. pseudo” is useful.
real/eso/high/psychedelic
pseudo/exo/low/nonpsychedelic

Instead of speaking in euphemisms and downplaying — as I did 1988-1997 — the drug aspect, I maximally emphatically emphasize and highlight chemicals, the strictly chemical-ingestion basis of our religion, of esotericism, of accessing the intense mystic altered state.

For those who try to downplay and turn away from this the source of the mystic state, that the source of the mystic state is not something other than psychoactive drug chemicals, I am forcefully blocking that escape with maximum forcefulness, maximum emphasis.

THIS IS THE METAL WAY: Don’t try to turn down the forcefulness; *turn up* the forcefulness. Crank the amp to 11.

I destroy adherence to low Christianity, and I make available high Christianity.

I destroy adherence to low religion, and make available high Religion.

I destroy adherence to low science, and make available high Science.

By igniting as mushroid the Eucharist and mixed wine throughout Christian and Greek culture, I am not destroying religion, science, academia, I am killing adherence to low religion, low science, low academia, and making available high religion, high science, high academia.


DOMAIN DYNAMICS

A long-term historical unclarity is what was my 1987 understanding of my idea of Domain Dynamics?

The idea of Domain Dynamics was a sizeable part of my April 1987 breakthrough in idea development technique.

The major parts of my breakthrough April 1987 idea development technique:

mental construct processing
acronyms
domain dynamics

The idea of Domain Dynamics didn’t play an explicit central part in my history of idea development.

Meditation (with Mushrooms added)

It’s not that there’s meditation, and then there’s meditation enhanced by psilocybin.

Rather, there is pseudo-meditation, and then there’s actual normal real meditation, which is *not* meditation with psilocybin added, but rather, tripping on psilocybin, with meditation added as an activity to do while in the psilocybin loose cognitive association binding state.

Meditation is an activity to do while in the psilocybin-induced loosecog state.
Not adding psilocybin to meditation; rather, adding meditation to psilocybin.

Meditation with Psilocybin added
Psilocybin with Meditation added

Delusion about strict critical historiography says:
There was meditation, and
sometimes Mushrooms were added to Meditation.

Enlightenment about strict critical historiography says:
There was use of Mushrooms, and
sometimes Meditation was done during Mushrooms.
Meditation was sometimes done without the Mushrooms that gave rise to the activity of Meditation.

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 9158 From: egodeath Date: 18/09/2016
Subject: Re: The Great Robbing and Suppressing of Psychedelics
‘contemplation’ (vs. ‘meditation’) is correct term for *Western* bullsh-t ersatz substitute inauthentic pseudo-religion.

Typo correction, per nonsense spewed by confabulations of the Western Esotericism writers, since I’m destroying exoteric esotericism to make available esoteric esotericism, I’m supposed to write ‘contemplation’ as a euphemism for ‘meditation’.

In everything I ever posted about Western Esotericism, change ‘meditation’ to ‘contemplation’.

Per the principle of Parity of Eastern bulsh*t pseudo-religion and Western bullsh*t pseudo-religion.

Bullsh*t = low/exoteric/apologist/Western priest scandals/ Eastern priest scandals

authentic = high/esoteric/psychedelic = Maximal psychedelic theory of religion
inauthentic = low/exoteric/nondrug (nonpsychedelic) = Minimal and Moderate psychedelic theories of religion

Crooks, priests, gurus, scandals, it’s all the same sh-t, the same low, ersatz, substitute, egoic, Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism, Minimal/Moderate Psychedelic Theory of Religion and Culture.

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 9159 From: egodeath Date: 18/09/2016
Subject: The Minimal vs. Maximal psychedelic models of religion
The Minimal vs. Maximal psychedelic models of religion

The Minimal vs. Maximal psychedelic models of religion and culture

Not developed in this post, but suggested by the clearer pattern I’ve gained:
the Meditation vs. Mushroom models of religion
the Meditation vs. Mushroom models of religion and culture

the Exoteric vs. Esoteric models of religion
the Low vs. High models of religion

Terminology for refactoring “Minimal/Moderate/Maximal psychedelic theories of religion” into a simple contrast-pair:

the Minimal psychedelic model of religion
the Maximal psychedelic model of religion

The distinction between Minimal vs. Moderate (psychedelic theories of religion) wasn’t pulling its weight.

There is negligible difference between “Minimal” vs. “Moderate”; the two are hard to differentiate, producing little gain in explanatory power.

The mind begins with the worldmodel Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism worldmodel, including the Minimal psychedelic model of religion.

The mind then goes through a series of mushroom sessions (with redosing in each session), which is not instantaneous.


From age 0 to 16, the mind adheres to the Minimal psychedelic theory of religion, and to Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism overall.

From age 16 to 18, the mind transforms from the Minimal to Maximal psychedelic theory of religion, and transforms from Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism to Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism.

From age 18 to 80, the mind adheres to the Maximal psychedelic theory of religion, and to Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism overall.


Changing only the hypothetical initiation age: 13, 16, 18, or 21.

Changing the duration of furnace transformation: with the Egodeath theory in hand, this can be instantaneous overnight transformation, from Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism to Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism.

Given the Egodeath theory in hand, in this region of the frozen unchanging preexisting spacetime communication block, a semester suffices, even a year is much longer than needed.

My Egodeath theory is so powerful, that I claim the mind is capable of transformation from Possibilism to Eternalism in just 1 semester; 2 quarters of freshman university courses.

In a single university undergrad course, the mind now — because the Egodeath theory is so ergonomic — can change from Possibilism to Eternalism in just 1 college quarter.

Mapping to old terminology/divisions:

new term =
old term(s)

the Minimal psychedelic model of religion =
the Minimal entheogen theory of religion +
the Moderate entheogen theory of religion +

the Maximal psychedelic model of religion =
the Maximal entheogen theory of religion

Exoteric scholars adhere to the Minimal psychedelic model of religion.
Esoteric scholars adhere to the Maximal psychedelic model of religion.

Low scholars adhere to the Minimal psychedelic model of religion.
High scholars adhere to the Maximal psychedelic model of religion.

Follow the theorists’ holy guiding star of extremism. Winnow, divide rightly the scriptures.

There are two opposed views:
low/high
exoteric/esoteric
Minimal vs. Maximal Psychedelic Model of Religion and Culture
Minimal/Maximal

According to the
I’m going with this idea and need acro’s/shortcuts.

the Minimal Psychedelic Model of Religion and Culture
the Maximal Psychedelic Model of Religion and Culture

the Minimal Psychedelic Model of Religion
the Maximal Psychedelic Model of Religion

the Minimal psychedelic model
the Maximal psychedelic model

mnpmr: the Minimal psychedelic model of religion
mxpmr: the Maximal psychedelic model of religion

Defining an acronym = reworking the concept labels/modules.

Testing the acro’s/shortcuts:

Low thinkers, stupid people (noninitiates; those on the outside) have the Minimal psychedelic model of religion.

High thinkers, smart people (initiates; those on the inside) have the Maximal psychedelic model of religion.

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 9160 From: egodeath Date: 18/09/2016
Subject: Re: The Minimal vs. Maximal psychedelic models of religion
My new phrases strangely, awkwardly put totally drug-free religion scholars into the same category as all the hardcore pop psychedelics advocates:

What does McKenna have in common with totally drug-free academic schoalrs of religion? They both disagree with my theory, which is the Maximal psychedelic model of religion.

Against McKenna I say “No, McKenna, you are the opposite of the truth! You say __ but I say the opposite, __.”

McKenna says Christianity didn’t understand or recognize or utilize Eucharist = psychedelics.

McKenna asserts the Minimal psychedelic model of religion.
According to this view, psychedelics have only a slight and deviant and exceptional role in [our] religious history.

Hoffman asserts the Maximal psychedelic model of religion.
According to this view, psychedelics have the central, originary role in [our] religious history.

Advocates of Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism, which inherently includes the Minimal psychedelic model of religion:
McKenna, Leary, Grof, Ruck, Rush

Advocates of Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism, which inherently includes the Maximal psychedelic model of religion:
Hoffman

I can see why I formed the complicated 3-slot scheme, of Minimal/Moderate/Maximal entheogen theory of religion and culture: to put entheogen scholars into a separate slot from establishment nondrug scholars.

It’s awkward to shove the two (McKenna and staid academics) to the left end of a polar dyad spectrum:
either you are thinking at this extreme end of the spectrum
(psychedelic drugs are deviant and exceptional in religion)
or
you are thinking at the other extreme end of the spectrum
(psychedelic drugs are normal and the source of religion, the authoritative point of reference).

So my first analysis will be contrasting Minimal (including Moderate) vs. Maximal,
my second more detailed level of analysis subdivides “Minimal” into Minimal (staid academics) and Moderate (McKenna).

Robert Graves, James Arthur, and John Allegro feel closer to my Maximal position than McKenna and Leary.

Robert Graves told R. Gordon Wasson the Maximal psychedelic model of religion.

Wasson sold out by publically only asserting the Moderate psychedelic model of religion.

There are two kinds of psychedelics scholars: Moderate and Maximal. If you are a psychedelics scholar, you are not a Minimal advocate (per the 3-slot system), but are either Moderate (Wasson) or Maximal (Allegro).

With regard to psychedelics in shamanism, Eliade was __.

With regard to psychedelics in Christianity, Wasson was Minimal.

The trajectory of views changing now from Minimal, to Moderate, to Maximal:

In 1970 in academia:
With regards to psychedelics in primitives’ religion, academics asserted the Minimal psychedelic model of religion.
With regards to psychedelics in our own, “World Religions”, academics assert the Minimal psychedelic model of religion.

In 2016 in academia:
With regards to psychedelics in primitives’ religion, academics assert the Moderate psychedelic model of religion.
With regards to psychedelics in our own, “World Religions”, academics assert the Minimal psychedelic model of religion.

In 2020 in academia:
With regards to psychedelics in primitives’ religion, academics will assert the Maximal psychedelic model of religion.
With regards to psychedelics in our own, “World Religions”, academics will assert the Moderate psychedelic model of religion.

In 2024 in academia:
With regards to psychedelics in primitives’ religion, academics will assert the Maximal psychedelic model of religion.
With regards to psychedelics in our own, “World Religions”, academics will assert the Maximal psychedelic model of religion.

Appreciate the Egodeath theory now — beat the rush.
Skip straight to the endpoint view.


Moderate psychedelic model of religion: Schultes, McKenna, Wasson, Leary, Letcher, pre-conversion Hatsis — THESE ARE DRUG SCHOLARS WHO DENY THE MUSHROOM EUCHARIST.

Maximal psychedelic model of religion: Michael Hoffman, Robert Graves, James Arthur, John Allegro — these are drug scholars who assert that the Eucharist was recognized and understood as mushrooms throughout Christian history.

The relevant key important critical litmus test: how do you answer the Michael Hoffman question:

To what extent was the Eucharist recognized as mushrooms?

The Minimal psychedelic model of religion asserts “Not.”
Schultes, McKenna, Wasson, Leary, Letcher, pre-conversion Hatsis, Hanegraaff.

The Maximal psychedelic model of religion asserts “Normally.”
Michael Hoffman, Robert Graves, James Arthur, John Allegro, Clark Heinrich.

Fact-checking citations are in order to fine-tune eg. did M. Hoffman’s Entheos magazine assert my Maximal view? It wavers.

Entheos is transitional between the old Minimal/Moderate view and my new, Maximal view — like Ruck wavers, asserting the Moderate view, yet putting forth such copious evidence that it instead *implies* my Maximal view.

Actually these people would fall across a spectrum, possibly clustered around Minimal and Maximal.

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 9161 From: egodeath Date: 18/09/2016
Subject: Re: The Minimal vs. Maximal psychedelic models of religion
1950: As an academic scholar spewing apologetics for Establishment Prohibition Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism, you write nothing about psychedelics in religion. There are no psychedelics in religion.

_____________________________

1950: You assert that
primitives/others/deviants didn’t use psychedelics in religion.
World Religions didn’t use psychedelics in religion.

1970: Then you assert that
primitives/others/deviants used psychedelics in religion a little,
but not in World Religions.

1990: Then you assert that
primitives used psychedelics in religion a lot, but
barely at all in World Religions.

2000: Then you assert that
primitives used psychedelics in religion a lot, and that
our World Religions used psychedelics a little.

2010: Then you assert that
primitives used psychedelics in religion a lot, and that
our World Religions recognized and used psychedelics to a moderate extent.

2020: Then you assert that
primitives recognized and used psychedelics in religion a lot, and that
our World Religions recognized and used psychedelics a lot.

_________________________________________

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com, spewing forth strict critical historiography — that’s a joke usage of a phrase, mocking Hanegraaff’s clueless Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism.

Hanegraaff proposes to do “strict critical historiography” while ignorant of Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism. Guaranteed trainwreck. No hope of accurate historiography. Instead:

Do strict critical historiography while applying the crucial explanatory framework: gnosis of Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism.

Strict critical historiography must inform Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism (gnosis), and Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism (gnosis) must inform strict critical historiography.

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 9162 From: egodeath Date: 18/09/2016
Subject: Re: The Great Robbing and Suppressing of Psychedelics
Correction:

For those who try to downplay and turn away from this the source of the mystic state, who assert that the source of the mystic state is something other than psychoactive drug chemicals, I am forcefully blocking that escape with maximum forcefulness, maximum emphasis.
Group: egodeath Message: 9163 From: egodeath Date: 18/09/2016
Subject: Re: The Great Robbing and Suppressing of Psychedelics
Would you rather buy
the snake-oil that the Western fake religious authority is selling, or
the snake-oil that the Eastern fake religious authority is selling?

The only true religious authority is psilocybin.

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 9164 From: egodeath Date: 18/09/2016
Subject: Re: The Great Robbing and Suppressing of Psychedelics
Letcher Hatsis and other readers of the psychedelic gospels are not yet converting from Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism to Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism; he is at first only converting from the Minimal psychedelic model of religion to the Maximal psychedelic model of religion.

At most, that’s 1/3 of my apocalypse.

Readers of the psychedelic gospels have only advanced from
Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism
to
Literalist Psychedelic Possibilism,
not yet converted all the way to my full revelation of gnosis,
Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism.

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 9165 From: egodeath Date: 18/09/2016
Subject: Re: The religion of Christian Cybernetic Egodeath
Imagine if these 3 revolution parties got together to form an alliance:

Literalist –> Metaphorical [historicity of Jesus –> ahistoricity]

Ordinary-state –> Psychedelic [entheogen scholarship]

Possibilism –> Eternalism [hyper-hyper-Calvinism, PhilOTime, certain QM authors favorable to Einstein/Minkowski/Parmenides/rock spacetime]


That’s the Egodeath Theory revolutionary apocalypse: from Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism to Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism.

A thoroughgoing conceptual revolution that integrates multiple ordinary-scale “revolutionary” theories.

The Egodeath theory is multi-revolutionary, mega-revolutionary.

Revealing Eucharist mixed wine as recognized as mushrooms, sets off the revelation signal network spread throughout the frozen spacetime block, producing the presence of world conflagration in particular regions of the spacetime rock.

In these regions of spacetimecommunication, of infospacetime, Michael ignites the beacon torches, which are all the instances of Eucharist and mixed wine, or all instances of recognizing Eucharist as mushrooms and all instances of recognizing mixed wine as mushrooms.

Greek + Bible contains this network of beacon torches embedded throughout our own culture.

How to take down the entire System of Establishment Delusion at once?

Michael Apollo ignites the beacon torches revealing Eucharist and mixed wine as mushrooms.

Dragon vanquished, nonbranching laurel branch crown, gate opens to those on the inside, into the mushroom redosing religious banquet party in the presence of God at the tree of life at the end of time experience distributed throughout the spacetime rock. Revelation is a matter of communication of information, communicating across space (Internet) and forward through time.

I write for others far away in space, or far away in both space and time but only the future, and only where my communication is preexistingly transmitted, my gospel transmission is a broadcast received by select few chosen to hear it.

Cybernetics is communication for control.

I transmit information revealing the basis of personal control-thinking.

I transmit (for communicating across space) and store information (for communicating to the future, across time but in one direction only) revealing the basis of personal control-thinking.

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 9166 From: egodeath Date: 19/09/2016
Subject: Power of Ideas: Esotericism, Historicism (Hanegraaff)
Power of Ideas: Esotericism, Historicism (Hanegraaff)

Article:
The Power of Ideas: Esotericism, Historicism, and the Limits of Discourse
Wouter Hanegraaff
April 2013
https://uva.academia.edu/WouterHanegraaff

Wouter Hanegraaff has asserted vehemently that we should avoid gnosis.

Hanegraaff has been inconsistent and hard to pin down, in his rants against dread Religionism.

The devil for Hanegraaff is Religionism.

(The devil for the Egodeath theory is meditation.

And defining ‘ego transcendence’ as nondual consciousness through nondrug meditation, per 1988 Journal of Transpersonal Psychology & early Ken Wilber.)

Hanegraaff is inconsistent as hell in defining his demon, ‘religionism’, and sometimes he equates Religionism with gnosis.

Wouter Hanegraaff writes on every page of his books and articles some variant of:

If you value gnosis, you are a Religionist.

Scholars of Western esotericism should be against gnosis.

Religionism is the worst impediment to strict critical historiography.


I and others have accused Wouter Hanegraaff of asserting that we should avoid gnosis. We accused Hanegraaff of being foolishly against the following:

Pages 267-268: paraphrased:

Hanegraaff defensively asserts that he *does* support the following:
________________________________

We should search for general or universal patterns in the study of religion.

We should do comparative research.

We should identify predicable, law-like mental processes in religious esoteric pursuits.

We should study ecstatic states of consciousness; we should apply neurobiology and cognitive studies to radical ecstatic trance *states* that are frequently reported in the search for gnosis.

________________________________

Hanegraaff continues on to clarify aspects of his position:

The Religionist school asserts that ‘Western esotericism’ is a candidate for what is universal in the study of religion. (Hanegraaff disagrees, but doesn’t here say what would be universal — such as Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism.)

Strict critical historiography doesn’t lead to complete atomism.

Western esotericism comes from pagan Hellenism throughout Christian culture.

________________________________

/Hanegraaff paraphrase

Hanegraaff has done a poor, inconsistent job of defining the positions he’s critiquing.

In this two-way article exchange, he’s having to invent additional categories that he never defined before.

Hanegraaff is ineffective at defining a useful set of positions.

Hanegraaff has more work to do to define what the ideal position would be, that is capable of incorporating his call to study the entire evidence and not just pluck supporting cases from it and ignore the rest.

Hanegraaff must define the position that affirms universal gnosis *and* accurate historical details.

Not “strict critical historiography” *at the expense of *universal gnosis theory*, which is the Egodeath theory, which is, better than Campbell’s journey, description of transformation from Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism to Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism.

Poor theorists (Letcher Hatsis) are poor and inconsistent at defining positions to critique.

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 9169 From: egodeath Date: 19/09/2016
Subject: Re: Power of Ideas: Esotericism, Historicism (Hanegraaff)
Every one of the “world religions” — and the deviant “pseudo religions” — have an esoteric version; that is, it is possible to ignore all the worthless junk in religious history, and pluck out just the following (transformation to Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism), crowning it, and dismissing the rest as folly that’s unworthy of scientific Egodeath theory research.

Hanegraaff, pass me that wastebasket you dumped out. But I will need an entire junkyard, to fit all the dross.

Yes, we should trace the detail development of every religion and pseudoreligion but when we do that, we should winnow and recognize the wheat and chaff.

Or skip the whole bothersome historical research and just pluck out timeless, culture-independent gnosis, which is, I reveal, Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism.

We can just abstract-out Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism and toss the rest of Western esotericism back into the wastebasket.

I’m a successful religionist, in this sense.

I have succeeded at that project Hanegraaff demonizes, in his ever-changing definition of ‘religionism’.

But I brought the succcessful identification of what gnosis is, from the Engineering department *into* the Western esotericism department, already productized.

I did not figure out what enlightenment is (Transcendent Knowledge; transformation from Possibilism to Eternalism) by extracting it from Western esotericism.

I used Western esotericism and religious mythology merely to *confirm* my finished Core theory essentially from the Engineering department.

I used the ‘eclectic’ approach Hanegraaff is against.

I also used strict critical historiography.

There’s lots of controversy around Hanegraaff. He’s unclear. An academic can be useful to shallow careerists by being vague, prevaricating.

Now we with no inspiration can set up shop cranking out rote formulaic articles “What does Hanegraaff really mean by strict critical historiography?”, “What does Hanegraaff really mean by Religionism?”

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 9171 From: egodeath Date: 19/09/2016
Subject: Re: Power of Ideas: Esotericism, Historicism (Hanegraaff)
Wouter Hanegraaff is a Katzian; a Contextualist, not an Essentialist, regarding purportedly universal mystic wisdom.

Hanegraaff, Katz, and other Contextualists don’t believe in universal zen satori found in Christianity and in the veiled sciences and in ancient gnosis/wisdom.

There is a fundamental disagreement here, even if Hanegraaff pretends to concede that we should look for universals in esotericism.

I believe in universal zen satori enlightenment gnosis wisdom Transcendent Knowledge — many people do — we are Essentialists, the Essentialist school.

Hanegraaff sides with Steven Katz, who asserts that there is no common universal mystic state. They are the Contextualist school.

Katz is behind the times, not hip to the dissolve and coagulate trip.

The Egodeath theory says there is a common universal mystic state and thing revealed by that state.

The mind innately begins with Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism, then through multiple sessions of redosing mushrooms, the mind innately ends with Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism.

This universal cognitive shift is a matter of Loose Cognitive Science, not culture.

Katz is wrong; he overstates Contexualism and throws away Essentialism, but truth is balanced as:

unimportant Contextualism as the surface UI skin, wrapping…
the important payload of Essentialism.

So to speak, Essentialism is the payload, Contextualism is the exoteric packaging.

And that’s what — as Hanegraaff states — the esotericists and religionists assert, that the changing aspect is the surface aspect, and underneath is unchanging satori/revelation/uncovering/enlightenment/salvation/regeneration/gnosis/wisdom.

_____________________________________
Contextualism says “That’s culturally dismissive and not respecting diversity.”

Contextualism says there’s *not* a universal unchanging gnosis, there’s not a rigid trellis hidden underneath this jungle overgrowth.

There’s only the surface, which varies per culture, and mysticism A is truly different than mysticism B.

When we trace detailed accurate strict critical historiography, the changes we are studying ARE esotericism, they ARE the esoteric experiencing, which changes over time and across place.

_____________________________________
Essential Essentialism per the Egodeath theory:

I speak for all esotericists, religionists, gnostics, mystics, mushroom zennists, when the Egodeath theory declares:

The common aspect of the intense mystic altered state that is experienced by all shamans, all zennists, all Esotericists, all Christ’s inner circle, is:

Experiential transformation from Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism to Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism, in the loose cognitive association state, which is induced by psilocybin mushrooms.

All brands of authentic religion are surface descriptions of this, and the aspects that don’t match across comparative High religion are the nonessential aspects, the dross — such as arbitrary differences in which analogy-set is used.

Religion A experiences Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism using analogy-set A.

Religion B experiences Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism using analogy-set B.

Therefore — in a way that makes relatively little difference, the experience of mystic A and B differ, in that they both experience Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism, but
A experiences Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism via analogy-set A, while
B experiences Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism via analogy-set B.

There is a difference, in surface branding, as important as the difference between the songs No One at the Bridge, Red Barchetta, and Cygnus X-1.

Different surface domain, same referent domain.

The Egodeath theory not only shows what’s the same for all mystics, it also identifies what’s different — where the dividing line is, what is eso and exo.

The song Red Barchetta describes Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism using the encoding-domain of cars.

The song Cygnus X-1 describes Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism using the encoding-domain of black hole spacecraft.

The song No One at the Bridge describes Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism using the encoding-domain of steering a sailing ship.

How important is it to track the surface details contrasting between these 3 songs? Superficial, shallow, low, outer, exoteric.

Hanegraff admitted strict critical historiography ain’t gonna grasp the esoteric aspect of Western esotericism!

Wouter Hanegraff is advocating exoteric esotericism! Hanegraaff’s strict critical historiography = advocacy of exoteric esotericism.

That is “the Katz limitation” on the power and relevance of Hanegraaff’s approach; the folly and fatal limitation of Katz’s Contextualism position (vs. Essentialism).

The most that you can achieve with strict critical historiography is exoteric esotericism — the history of the development of the nonessential, variable surface branding.

You take Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism and say:

“Let’s write a new song, this time mapping the surface domain of “girls” with the profound referent of Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism, instead of mapping “spaceship black hole” onto that profound referent.”

What does Hanegraaff, the strictly exoteric esotericist, see on his radar? “The band changed from a song about spaceship black hole, to a song about girls.”

The real referent (gnosis = satori = revelation = salvation = enlightenment = Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism) slips through this radar, of “strict critical historiography”.

What an embarrassment, travesty. If this is scholarship, then commit it to the flames.

Hanegraaff gives us the accurate strict critical history of sawdust, of bubble wrap, with no payload.

How important is it to identify and recognize the common referent concern domain as Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism? Deep, profound, high, inner, esoteric.


Exoteric thinking (folly) says religions are different.

Esoteric thinking (wisdom) says, we perceive the profound way in which religions are the same: it’s Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism, with merely different surface analogy-sets describing that.

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 9173 From: egodeath Date: 19/09/2016
Subject: Enlightenment = Permanent Psychosis
Enlightenment = Permanent Psychosis

In the snake-guarded tree-orchard garden in paradise, upon reading the Egodeath theory,
1/4 of readers suffered ego death.
1/4 went psychotomimetic.
1/4 cut all the branches off the trees.
1/4 entered the Theory in peace and left in peace.

The Four Who Entered Paradise
http://www.alteredfluid.com/2015/09/18/36-days-of-judaic-myth-day-11-the-four-who-entered-paradise/

http://google.com/search?q=four+entered+pardes
http://google.com/search?q=four+entered+paradise
http://google.com/search?q=four+entered+garden
http://google.com/search?q=four+entered+orchard

— Professor Loosecog, head exorcist, University of Transcendent Knowledge
Group: egodeath Message: 9174 From: egodeath Date: 19/09/2016
Subject: Hanegraaff’s Academic Suicide
Hanegraaff’s _Academic Suicide_

Wouter Hanegraaff joins Robert Price in committing Academic Suicide by un-critically siding with agent Wasson against John Allegro’s assertion of mushrooms in Christianity.

What happened? How could Hanegraaff have made such a fatal misjudgment? How did he handle the fallout? What happened with Hanegraaff afterwards? The story ends with a rather painful account of intellectual and moral decline.

http://wouterjhanegraaff.blogspot.com/2012/09/missed-opportunities.html?m=1

Hanegraaff unimaginatively parrots the usual secondhand sub-scholarly rubbish against Allegro, and Irvin sets him straight, at length, catching Hanegraaff in an embarrassing total failure of elementary scholarship, just as I caught the supposedly “radical critical scholar” Robert Price writing in the original version of his review of Acharya’s Christ Conspiracy, where Price carelessly and un-critically dismissed Acharya’s favorable mention of the mushroom Christianity theory (with Price botching every aspect).

Allegro (mushrooms in Christianity) brings out the worst in scholars, including Price and Hanegraaff.

Thus saith Irvin to Hanegraaff:

“A debate will go very poorly for you regarding John Allegro.”

If you write against visionary plants — mushrooms in Christianity — without reading the scholarship, it will not go well; it will go very poorly for you.

Hanegraaff incoherently accuses Allegro of getting his ideas (asserting mushrooms in Christianity) from Wasson.

Wasson denied (covered-up), not asserted, mushrooms in Christianity.

I haven’t seen such as botched commentary by a shockingly *uncritical* advocate of critical historiography, since Price’s botched dismissal of Allegro, using Wasson.

Price: “I run the Journal of Higher Criticism.”

Hanegraaff: “I demonize religionism and advocate critical historiography.”

Establishment-compliant scholars’ “critical” scholarship stops precisely where mushrooms in Christianity begins, vanishing like egoic Possibilism, the phantom demon, the moment our own religion is joined to psychedelic mushrooms.


Irvin wrote:
“Wasson published almost nothing on mushrooms in Judeo-Christianity, and in fact attacked any and every scholar who attempted to investigate the matter, and set up a fallacious argument to prevent scholars from looking, which apparently you bought.”

“your reply only further emphasizes your poor research on the matter, and your willingness to bring up irrelevant data to defend it.
May I recommend you get yourself current with the research so that you understand what you’re getting yourself entangled in?
If you’re going to attempt to enter the field of ethnomycology, then it helps to be current on the subjects and researches and not repeat disproved lies, as it reveals a lack of competence and inability to check primary documentation.
A debate will go very poorly for you regarding John Allegro.
You may be the great Dr. Hanegraaff, but if you’re incapable of primary research and keeping current, it means absolutely nothing. I could provide you hundreds of facts and citations, but it seems clear that you’ve already made up your mind and are only here to defend what someone else told you to believe, rather than checking it yourself…”

— Irvin


Robert Price similarly brushed aside Allegro and Acharya, by invoking the magic name Wasson, while suspending the critical thinking that he has the audacity to lecture others on.

Strict critical historiography points straight to mushrooms as the Eucharist.

Want to see a major, tireless advocate of “critical” scholarship hypocritically instantly drop their “critical” mentality like a hot potato?

Point out the mushroom Eucharist.


Wouter Hanegraaff vehemently advocates strict hypocritical historiography.

Robert Price advocates Radical Higher Hypocritism.


Price’s review of Acharya was an embarrassment (regarding Allegro being supposedly disproved by Wasson), filled with grade-school errors, the exact opposite of elementary scholarship, never mind “radical critical” scholarship.

Then Price directed me in writing the Plaincourault article setting straight, at full length, the abortive non-debate between Allegro and Wasson.


The worst scholars strive to disassociate the Eucharist from mushrooms, asserting that no one ever understood the Eucharist as mushrooms, and that for thousands of years, across thousands of miles, no psilocybin mushrooms grew in Europe, and there are no mushrooms in Christianity.
E. Panofsky, agent Wasson, A. Letcher (aka T. Hatsis), T. McKenna.

C. Ruck hovers in-between in a blurry quantum indeterminate state:
Everyone universally knew that the Eucharist is mushrooms, but no one really knew about it.

The best scholars strive to associate the Eucharist with mushrooms, asserting that everyone on the inside always understood the Eucharist as mushrooms.
R. Graves, J. Allegro, J. Arthur, C. Heinrich, M. Hoffman, M. Hoffman.

At Hanegraaff’s academic suicide posting, a researcher posted anonymously

“Christianity cannot have stemmed from a mushroom cult. First, because no “Magic Mushrooms” worth the name grow in the parts where Christianity started, and that’s counting the Greek world, the Roman world, etc. Amanita Muscaria was only used in remote Siberia, but even then, it was not really traditional. “Intoxication by mushrooms also produces contacts with the spirits, but in a passive and crude way. This technique appears to be late and derivative. Intoxication is a mechanical and corrupt method of producing “ecstasy”, being “carried out of oneself”. It tries to imitate a model that is earlier and that belongs to another plane of reference.” (Mircea Eliade about the Siberians, Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, 1951)”

Eliade and Panofsky said it, I believe it, that settles it.

In 7th Grade, at age 12, I drew a color, poster-sized map of trade routes in Mediterranean antiquity.

This research was the basis for my breakthroughs of strict critical historiography and higher radical criticism in 2001 and 2013, recognizing world religious mythology as analogy describing psychedelics revealing Eternalism/noncontrol.

Which explanatory theory better explains the problems and evidence we face (or turn our face away from)?

Even if imperfectly, leaving questions without yet a satisfactory answer.

Problematic data to be explained, that doesn’t fit the Old Theory, that requires a New Theory: the psychedelic gospels written by andro-gyne Brown.

Is Brown a man, or woman; Hermes or Aphrodite? Both!

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 9177 From: egodeath Date: 20/09/2016
Subject: Re: Enlightenment = Permanent Psychosis
The large portion of readers who go insane reading the Egodeath theory always turns into a nuisance, just as advanced trippers who have reached the initial false peak, the nonduality delusion, turn into a nuisance for the new science studies of underdosing beginners so they have a flush of beginners’ unity delusion, but Mr. Hopkins kicks these children out when they start turning to look up and behind the mask to see the snake and panic climax desire for control power death demonstration and worldmodel conflagration.

We weren’t expecting to summon and invoke Religion and we really can’t deal with it.

We don’t have a magic protection circle, except the Eternalism rock with debranched tree king crowned with nonbranching vine.

So we in the Psychedelic RENAISSANCE of the occult sciences of ancient pagan Hellenism gnosis wisdom veiled sciences of analogy, we modern rational opposites of Western esotericism irrationalist hoodoo, we limit our research to fresh virgin minds, underdosed, to get the Foolish and Happy portion of the mushroom transformation.

And throw away the Wise and Transformative portion of the mushroom transformation, the chaff.

The last time a rabbi went into that inner chamber, he was no longer a psychedelic virgin, so we had to tie a long rope around his leg in case God killed him in there so we could safely pull him back out.

We only let beginners go in there to the inner chamber where the manna is covered, and even then we underdose them, in Professor Nutt’s Psychedelic Neurophrenology, which is the source of many new science studies in the Psychedelic Renaissance of the occult sciences of ancient psychedelic wisdom.

The fool begins the journey to psychotomimetic wisdom of adult climax control attractor capability, the Teacher of Climactic Righteousness would love to turn you sacred world coming in this region of the non-meta-changing cyberspacetime block.

A third of people who read my Egodeath theory go insane, permanent psychosis, and then when they post, it’s word salad, with poor, low, shallow, outer signal/noise ratio, and I have to do even more heavy lifting than when it’s just me alone writing my superior word salad with rich, high, deep, inner signal noise ratio.

A third of people who read my Egodeath theory go insane, permanent psychosis, exactly as the authors reported in the new science study/psychonauts’ guidebook, _Psilocybin as an Inducer of Ego Death_.

Psilocybin as an Inducer of Ego Death and Similar Experiences of Religious Provenance
Katarzyna Stebelska and Krzysztof Labuz
http://google.com/search?q=%22Psilocybin+as+an+Inducer+of+Ego+Death%22

If you are attempting to have religious self-control seizure climax, but you screwed up and the snake that God created for your life doesn’t include taking a sufficient dose, read this inventory of all the kinds of bad things that any researcher or study has ever mentioned could happen involving psilocybin in any way.

A ton of psilocybin could fall on you from a rooftop.

That’s the only potential harm that these counter-researchers overlooked, in their article designed to counter Jennifer Lyke.

I like, like Lyke.

It’s like, these science researchers in this new science study, like, don’t like Lyke, because Lyke likes psilocybin like Martin Ball likes 5meow.

I like how the liking of psilocybin by beginner researchers in the Cognitive Science lab leads to like maximum freakout in Phase 2 of the psilocybin initiation mental transformation process, when Johns Hopkins discards you for fresh Mind for him to use, back in the beginner nondual delusion phase of Campbell’s Psychedelic Hero Trip.

In Phase 2 of the series of mushroom-redosing sessions, the intellect discovers the attractive control-climax eros thanatos drive, the attractive horror of seeing and experiencing the Eternalism snake worldline embedded in Minkowski’s spacetime rock.

Evil Professor Tightcog to the rescue! QM proves freewill and open-future possibility branching.

Snake = Eternalism = Einstein, Relativity, Minkowski, Parmenides, the fewer (because a subset, of developmentally advanced)

Tree = Possibilism = Bohr, QM, Official Doctrine, the multiverse, string theory, the mass of noninitiates.

Everyone starts out as a Possibilism-thinker, and many flee in terror when enlightenment about CyberSpaceTime is revealed, as William James tried to run away from the vision of the Iron Block Universe.

I have the power to melt iron and resolidify it. I can do a spacetime walk outside of the spacetime block to do repairs on it from outside, make alterations of pieces of the spacetime block, like at the corners of the rock.

Four rabbis entered a mushroom snake tree apple garden gate in paradise.


Four rabbis entered the garden in paradise.
One rabbi died.
One rabbi went insane.
One rabbi became a heretic.
Only one rabbi became enlightened.
— Evil Rabbi Tightcog

But that’s not what the scriptures that are being commented on say; that’s what the evil clueless exoteric Peter Tightcog commentators say in their pseudo-summary.

The Mary John Loosecog esoteric commentators point at the text of the original story, the signal, ignoring the noise, which is the fake mock commentary, layers of Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism (foolish exoteric) rabbis commenting on layers of Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism (wise esoteric) rabbis’ commentary.

— Rabbi Loosecog
Group: egodeath Message: 9178 From: egodeath Date: 20/09/2016
Subject: Be Irvin compatible
It’s unclear what to make of Irvin’s still-early findings that Pop Sike Cult is a CIA invention to disempower people in some way.

Good Theory about psychedelics in religion should not contradict Irvin’s data/research findings.

I never bought into Pop Sike Cult but built my own separate foundation.

I didn’t read any Pop Sike books, wasn’t aware of them, until 1988 after my Core theory development in January 1988.

Then my project of widespread reading of all the poor writings on related subjects has an attitude of learning poor thinking in order to communicate my good insights to poor thinkers such as Pop Sike authors.

Heinrich I believed; not off-base (around 2000), but the usual authors, Leary, I thought way off-base. My mission was to replace R.A.W. as far as identifying what psychedelic gnosis is about.

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 9179 From: egodeath Date: 20/09/2016
Subject: Re: Be Irvin compatible
One thing that I have never seen anyone comment on this is the red flag that for me made me disbelieve everything I read about psychedelics history around 1960s the tall tale of Leary’s prison escape

you don’t just escape from prison and write books about it how is it that Leary escaped from prison and then wrote books about it

this is completely unbelievable and therefore everything about this everything about the published books the histories of the 1960s is completely unbelievable, exactly as unbelievable as Leary escaping from prison and then writing books bragging about it

that doesn’t make any sense at all

you can’t just do that

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 9180 From: egodeath Date: 20/09/2016
Subject: Re: Be Irvin compatible
McKenna Leary Huxley why didn’t they reveal Eucharist is mushrooms?

McKenna was forcefully dismissive of mushrooms in Christianity.

Effectively McKenna might as well of been part of some conspiracy to deny and suppress mushrooms in Christianity.

Why did the CIA assert the set of fallacies they chose to assert in inventing pop psych cult but not other ideas?

To what extent was there a conspiracy to suppress mushrooms in Christianity in the 60s?

if no academics were able to put together the totally obvious realization that Eucharist is mushrooms why was the CIA somehow aware of that — did agent Wasson’s Vatican tell them?

Does this explain the extreme fatal assumption, the unbelievably self-defeating assumption spread by all of the 1960s psychedelic authors?

The assumption firmly reinforced by all of these authors that LSD is new (as a type), that adding psychedelics to religion is new, especially adding psychedelics to our own religion is wildly new and of course our own religion lacks psychedelics.

Why didn’t the CIA’s invented Pop Sike Cult reveal mushrooms in Christianity?

Did they suppress knowledge of mushrooms in Christianity?

Why did the CIA invent the particular version of false psychedelics history that they created, not some other version?

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 9181 From: egodeath Date: 20/09/2016
Subject: Re: Enlightenment = Permanent Psychosis
Against Hanegraaff’s extreme dissing of Eranos, I credit my car repair shop’s sharing library for the Eranos book article by Kerenyi on Mask and babies dying seeing snake through the mask.

That is analogy describing transformation from Possibilism to Eternalism by Psilocybin as is the ancient wisdom on a lace doily on a silver platter decoding of ‘gnosis’ brought to you by Eta Kappa Nu 1988.

kicks these children out when they start turning to look up and behind the mask to see the snake and panic climax desire for control power death demonstration and worldmodel conflagration

Hanegraaff is in error dissing Eranos and (inconsistently defined) “Religionism”.

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 9182 From: egodeath Date: 21/09/2016
Subject: Re: Transcendent Knowledge podcast commentary
What position precisely is McKenna asserting? (Implicitly and explicitly.)

Did McKenna assert the following? Did he assert these explicitly or implicitly?

o No one (or, insufficient numbers) in Christian culture ever understood the Eucharist as mushrooms. [need to define what this means/doesn’t mean]

o For thousands of years, across thousands of miles, no psilocybin mushrooms (or, insufficient numbers) grew in Europe.

o There are no mushrooms (or, insufficient numbers) in Christianity. [need to define what this means/doesn’t mean]


It is amazing how widespread is the poor, vague, inconsistent statement of what a researcher’s position is, and what position a researcher is refuting.

This is a huge issue in Wasson’s writings, in Letcher’s (Hatsis’) writings, and the more I read Hanegraaff the more inconsistent and ill-formed his accursed Religionism demon is.

Since Hanegraaff is wrong or hazy I must be Religionism.

Religionism is when you because of reading about psilocybin recognize religious myth as analogy describing psilocybin causing experiencing switching from Possibilism to Eternalism-thinking.

Religionism is profound and fits with strict critical historiography.

The one authentic religious experience is transformation from Possibilism to Eternalism on Psilocybin.

Religionism is Psilocybin mental mode switching in loosecog from Eternalism to Possibilism thinking.

There are 7.3 different types of religionism — isn’t Hanegraaff magically reifying to demonize stuff, “Religionism, I summon thee in all forms, to curse thee!”

No doubt, Hanegraaff has taken the wastebasket he dumped out and using the wastebasket now labelled as Religionism, to randomly toss away and curse anything he doesn’t like.

This is how the term ‘religionism’ *functions* in his *narrative* of good wise blessed exoteric strict critical historiography [EXCEPT FOR MUSHROOMS IN CHRISTIANITY] vs. evil foolish dread and accursed RELIGIONISM!! Run away!

“*my* wastebasket, now”, taken over from Protestant Rationalism, throw {the interest in decoding ancient wisdom gnosis salvation} into my repurposed wastebasket.

All that gnosis elixir hoodoo ceremony prayer stuff is preventing accurate strict critical historiography in its exoteric-only Real Scholars glory.

What a defeatist. Religionism is imperfect, so BAN IT! Throw Religionism in the wastebasket!

And then all forms of all stuff you dislike, redefine your magic reified term ‘Religionism’ to include that.


No one speaks for me: I have never stated my experience.

You don’t know sh*t about my amount or absence of experience so stfu about my alleged experience.

Peep can talk all they want about casually my experience — means they are not objective. They don’t know sh*t about it.

Got to get to bt keyboard.


In honor of Campbell I’m buying nice 3rd e. Hero Faces.

My foundation core peak breakthrough was 1/88 but 11/2013 tree snake peak breakthrough I was all like OMFG!! OMFG!! OMFG!! for like a week, def. 4 days at least.

THE POWER OF MYTH is the book — along with cover of kylix art of Jason and the serpent guard at the {laurel branch near-nonbranching 1-stem subtree} with golden ram fleece hung over where the branching point would be, Athena wearing snakes aegis in Paradise garden of the Hesperides in Eden.

Golden fleece of Abraham’s sacrificed ram when Jason looked up and looked behind his mask at the power ram caught helpless in Minkowski cyberspacetime the king’s son flees and is torn to pieces by the mind demonstrating desire for control steering power judging alarming compelling (side or foot) vulnerability to ready disproof of the power of the king in tree trunk frozen in Rock.

Campbell’s power of myth was there when I saw tree snake Possibilism Eternalism.

Only half the painting actually. Grayscale not color.
The only inspiration I got so far from that book THE POWER OF MYTH was a single, quarter of a painting, Eve smile holding apple looking at smiling snake in tree of knowledge in garden near God naked (Oden) not clothed w egoic thinking mask.

Joined to Jason tree fleece serpent Athena aegis, mushroom mythology of tree vs. snake as transformation from Possibilism to Eternalism BLEW MY F-CKING MIND, man!!

I saw, I understood.


People who reject something like “mushrooms in Christianity” never specify their position clearly, or the position they are against.

Letcher constantly wavers on what his position is, and on what position he’s against.

People who assert something like “mushrooms in Christianity” specify their position clearly, and clearly specify the position they are against.

My theory of ahistoricity of Jesus is superior because it is better defined, excellently and well-formedly specified.

I define what specifically it should mean to assert that Jesus didn’t exist.

It is meaningless if you just say Jesus didn’t exist.

A binary is too simplistic (Jesus existed vs. Jesus didn’t exist). What *counts* as “the historical Jesus”?

Jesus is the sun, the sun exists, therefore Jesus exists.

Joe Shmoe in antiquity was developed into the Jesus figure. Mr. Shmoe existed. Therefore, Jesus *existed*, as a specific historical identifiable individual, without whom Christianity couldn’t have started.

John Smythe also existed, and was another source for the mythical Jesus figure, therefore, Jesus historically exists as an individual TIMES TWO.

You can have zero Historical Jesuses (HJs) or a thousand HJs; what the data forbids you from having is a single HJ, “the” HJ, a single time-machine identifiable individual without whom Christianity wouldn’t’ve started.

With such useful precision of definition, specify what McKenna asserted, specifically — or what Wasson/McKenna/Letcher/Hatsis asserted specifically — and what he refuted, specifically.

What are the untenable implied assertions within what McKenna asserts and refutes regarding the Eucharist (agape meal, Communion, Lord’s Supper) recognized/understood/ingested as psilocybin and/or Amanita mushrooms?

Childish, immature, undeveloped thinking is *vague*, filled with an unconscious, implicit assumption-set, that doesn’t hold up and is self-contradictory, when dragged into the light and deconstructed.

Unthinking non-thinking, unthinking thinking; thoughtless thinking.

Kettle logic; incoherent biases and prejudice and unconscious illogical assumptions, like Hanegraaff accusing Allegro of getting his ideas (about the mushroom basis of Christianity) from Wasson — which makes little sense, given that Wasson asserted that there were mushrooms in proto-Jewish Ancient Near East religion *only* prior to the writing of Genesis, *not* during Jewish or Christian history.

Wouter Hanegraaff is sheerly confused, in Hanegraaff’s beat-on-Allegro academic suicide blog post.

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 9183 From: egodeath Date: 21/09/2016
Subject: Re: Hanegraaff’s Academic Suicide
There goes Hanegraaff, any time he writes anything about Allegro

http://google.com/search?q=roller+derby+wipeout&tbm=isch
Group: egodeath Message: 9185 From: egodeath Date: 21/09/2016
Subject: Re: Enlightenment = Permanent Psychosis
WHAT’S MISSING FROM EVERY MYTH THEORY IS *PSILOCYBIN*.

*** _PSILOCYBIN!!!_ ***

Mushrooms stand tall above all myth scholarship and are *the* key to fully decoding religious mythology.

Religionism is not bad so far as it goes, but it omits psilocybin.

Campbell’s dream psychology explanation of myth is not bad so far as it goes, but it omits psilocybin.

Hanegraaff’s exoteric esotericism is not bad so far as it goes, but it omits psilocybin.


Hanegraaff, students will be interested in PSILOCYBIN History. Non-psychedelic history is boring and reductionist and not what the psilocybin mind is looking for.

There’s Dionysus mania frenzy ecstasis in High History — or, to prevent your dark word-magic, I say *Psilocybin* History, not your wrecked term ‘Entheogen’ History which permits evil meditation to masquerade as “an entheogen”.

The history of nondrug “meditation” is the history of error and avoidance of the ancient psilocybin gnosis wisdom.

If meditation “can” cause the intense mystic altered state, I’m going to block a nostril and trigger seizure. Doesn’t happen.

Meditation is anti-en-theo-gen.

Keep that meditation bullsh-t *well* away from sacred psilocybin, the only entheogen.

Nondrug meditation is a fraudulent, psilocybin-avoidance tactic.

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 9186 From: egodeath Date: 21/09/2016
Subject: Re: Hanegraaff article: Entheogenic Esotericism
MEDITATION IS BULLSHIT.

Meditation is ANTI-en-theo-gen.

The *only* entheogen is psilocybin.

Meditation is fraudulent, an imposter that exists purely for the purpose of avoiding gnosis wisdom, which comes only through a series of PSILOCYBIN redosing sessions.

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 9187 From: egodeath Date: 22/09/2016
Subject: Re: Bk: Esotericism and the Academy (Hanegraaff)
How to tell which “contemporary esotericism” counts as esotericism, warranting studying? Easy and clear, for the Egodeath theory:

True Essentialism: Real Esotericism is Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism; Real Esotericism is that which describes transformation from Possibilism to Eternalism.

Is Esotericism found in modern comix? Yes to the extent that comix describe transformation from Possibilism to Eternalism, from Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism to Metaphorical Psilocybin Eternalism.

Roundtable discussion on contemporary esotericism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjI_pxQXVi4
1:23:30

Against Hanegraaff, all authentic esotericism, Real Esotericism, provably, can be reduced to one thing:

Esotericism is analogy describing psychedelics transforming experiencing and thinking from Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism to Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism.

How a scholar should practice Esotericism:

All the way: the scholar ingests Psilocybin in a series of redosing sessions, while reading the Egodeath theory about transformation from Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism to Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism.

Sufficient: scholar reads about ingesting Psilocybin in a series of redosing sessions, while reading the Egodeath theory about transformation from Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism to Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism.

[1:40:25]
Audience:
Schematically excluding the possibility that there might be a cross-culturally valid universal psychological factors in the Western esotericism.

Hanegraaff:
I’m definitely not excluding that at all. That would be a question of comparative research. That would be a conclusion of research. So first you do the research, and there you find out that there are commonalities I’m open to that possibility. The problem of Religionism is that it works the other way around, it *starts* with the assumption, and no matter what you find in your research, you still hold to that assumption. That’s something completely different. But no, I would be not against, on the contrary, I’m not at all against looking for trying to find commonalities and that I find it very important and exciting to do, absolutely.”


Hanegraaff’s implicit model of how you form hypothesis and test them is incoherent and unrealistic. The distinction he’s trying to make, between looking for universal, vs. discovering it “first”, is nothing — there is no difference.

Hanegraaff is a confused gatekeeper trying to make a hard distinction between the order of salvation; to discover a universal pattern, you have to be trying to perceive a universal pattern.

I formed the Eternalism/Cybernetics model of Transcendent Knowledge/ego transcendence, with no focus on religious mythology, and then I brought that model to myth, expecting corroboration, and I confirmed the expected observational result: my model (Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism) is found in myth as its central concern.

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 9188 From: egodeath Date: 22/09/2016
Subject: Re: The religion of Christian Cybernetic Egodeath
The Holy Gospel of Psilocybin Salvation

I am the way and the truth and the life; none shall come to the Father but through me, psychoactive mushrooms, the redemptive Psilocybin flesh and blood of Christ.

The intense mythic altered state comes *only* through sacred, blessed Psilocybin, *not* through the Antichrist’s accursed, counterfeit religions of nondrug “contemplation”, dreaming, nostril-blocking, hyperventilating, affected babbling, or anything else other than Psilocybin.

When children want to avoid seeing the snake through the mask, to avoid dying and being sacrificed, they use meditation and disparage Psilocybin.

The false, low, exoteric, pseudo-esoteric religion is meditation.

Meditation is a fake, placebo imitation of Psilocybin.

Satan meditates. Satan thinks mushrooms are an imitation of meditation.

Exoteric thinkers believe that Mushrooms imitate Meditation (with claimed success, but without actual success).

Esoteric thinkers know that Meditation imitates Mushrooms (with claimed success, but without actual success).

Salvation, enlightenment, satori, wisdom, gnosis, regeneration, redemption, comes only one way: through Psilocybin; through ingesting psychedelic drug chemicals.

Most classically and ergonomically fine-tuned to go most readily into the intense mythic altered state, is a series of Psilocybin redosing sessions, per the long, ancient mixed-wine banqueting tradition.

Freedom of religion means specifically, above all, the freedom to ingest Psilocybin as the Eucharist.

Freedom of Religion requires specifically, above all, the full repeal of Psilocybin Prohibition, back to the 1776-1913 nonexistence of laws against psychoactive drugs.

There is *no* freedom of religion without Psilocybin.

There is no freedom of religion — there is no actual religion or salvation at all — without Psilocybin.

I am the way, the truth, and the life; none shall come to the Father but through me, the salvific Psilocybin flesh of Christ, the mixed-wine mushroom blood of salvation and eternal nondying life.

— Michael, the original, definitive, authoritative dogmatic Psychedelic Fundamentalist
Group: egodeath Message: 9190 From: egodeath Date: 22/09/2016
Subject: Re: The religion of Christian Cybernetic Egodeath
When I write ‘Psilocybin’ or ‘Mushrooms’, I mean amanita, muscimol, psilocybic acid, psychedelic mushrooms, psychedelics, but definitely not Meditation. Meditation exists to avoid enlightenment.

When I write ‘Meditation’, I mean nondrug meditation in denial of its mushroom basis, and John Pilchian nostril-blocking, and the infinite list of placebo pseudo-mystic practices, which exist for the purpose of avoiding Psilocybin and thus of avoiding enlightenment, gnosis, ancient wisdom, salvation, satori, and blessing.

Thus when I preach about the evils of Meditation, which leads to eternal damnation, and glories of Psilocybin, by which the soul is saved, I am contrasting these lists, these sets of false and true ways.

I advocate extreme maximum Religionism.

I just need to get clear on Hanegraaff’s 27 different definitions. Glad to see he’s catching a lot of flak about basics of his hardcore fervent proselytizing for strict critical historiography and condemning and cursing Religionism.

The Egodeath theory’s all the way about maximum extreme Religionism.

The entire problem with religion is, not enough Religionism.

Maximum extreme Religionism is the Egodeath theory, involvement in the cultic occult hidden activity of reading about redosing psilocybin sessions to transform from Possibilism-cognition to Eternalism-cognition.

cognition = mental construct processing = thinking + experiencing

This is a reason to use ‘cognitive’ instead of ‘mental’. The words ‘thinking’ and ‘experiencing’ are overspecific. The other terms are able to cover thinking and experiencing.

In the garden near God at the snake-guarded mushroom tree is hyper-hyper-Calvinism and Eternalism-cognition.

“Western” esotericism is catching flak — we psychologists are looking for universal global gnosis — I to corrob. my indep. theory that was formed uncontaminated by myth.

When I brought my Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence to myth from the Engineering department in November 2001, I discovered myth is clever analogy describing Eternalism/noncontrol.

I eventually drew the extreme conclusion that all authentic religious myth is based on Psilocybin (against nondrug dreams, nondrug meditation, nondrug drumming, nondrug speaking in tongues, etc., etc.)

The Holy Spirit is Psilocybin and nothing else.

The Holy Spirit is none other than Psilocybin.

The only way for Buddhists to be saved is by eating the flesh of Christ, and drinking the blood of Christ, Psilocybin.

In a series of redosing sessions with Praying Hands per ergonomic Traditionalism.

Else, their mind will burn in purifying Psilocybin flames for eternity, a never-ending bad trip until they are turned to faith by the order of salvation:

Did you discover gnosis the righteous way, purely by strict critical historiography, mind chaste and free of any sinful thoughts of psychological commonality underlying religious mythology?

Or did you — God forbid! — exert sinful human effort to deliberately *look for* the psychological universal commonality of ancient gnosis wisdom, and that’s the real motivation for your bad pseudo-historical pseudo-scholarship?

We must strike the correct pose and give the correct impression, so that the other departments can see that we don’t mean business when it comes to figuring sh-t out like gnosis and wisdom.

We must leave that embarrassing rubbish to the amateurs!

Steven Katz has put out a warning to all departments: beware of pseudo-scholars who stoop to trying to figure out and decode universal ancient gnosis and wisdom.

Rest assured, Other Departments, the new field of Western esotericism strictly enforces correctly following the rules of Strict Critical Historiography, and constantly, vigilantly guards against unprofessionalism.

Particularly, we fully demonize any attempt to decode universal religious mythology and Western esotericism, in terms of universal psychological dynamics of the loose cognitive association binding state induced by Psilocybin.

Scholarly Western esotericism is PURE and has NOTHING to do with trying to identify a preexisting theory (Analogical Psilocybin Eternalism) in the core of world religious mythology, by rummaging willy-nilly through fanciful fictional histories (such as the existence of Eusebius, Paul, Jesus, Adam, Moses, Balaam, Isaac, Jacob, and Abraham).

😦 The ahistoricity of Old Testament figures *used to be* controversial, way back in 1995; now it’s like “duh, obviously; why would anyone think otherwise?”

Psilocybin is the only savior, Psilocybin interpreted as the flesh of Mr. Historical Jesus. Jesus lives! Hallelu Jah!

Vow Ter Hanegraaff never *imagined* such a thing as a successful authoritative decoding of world religious mythology, a successful solution, experientially readily immediately freely reproducible and observable by all, reliably, the source of authority.

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 9191 From: egodeath Date: 22/09/2016
Subject: Re: Hanegraaff’s Academic Suicide
The article misses an opportunity to say something — anything — about the ahistoricity of Jesus, which Allegro asserted in SMC.

Hatsis indicated that he is devoted to ridiculing ahistoricity. Hatsis blames the ahistoricity view as a major reason why academics reject knowledge of visionary plants in religious history.

Allegro is correct: Jesus didn’t exist, and Christianity is based on mushrooms; Christians recognized the Eucharist as mushrooms.

McKenna is incorrect on this. Did McKenna write about Jesus’ ahistoricity?

Western esotericism restricted to the early modern period, and now permitting-in the current era (2016), is a handy shelter from the controversy over NO HISTORICAL JESUS. Or Paul, Eusebius, Church Fathers, Peter, or existence of recognizable Christianity before 325.

Chrest saves! Especially if you are hellenistic ruling class in Egypt. (John Bartram)

I’ve never seen Hanegraaff mention ahistoricity, or reject Allegro because Allegro is doubly taboo (analogical/ahistorical Jesus, Mushrooms).

The Thrice Taboo Egodeath theory: Analogical/ahistoricity Psychedelic/mushroom Eternalism/noncontrol.

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 9192 From: egodeath Date: 22/09/2016
Subject: Re: Bk: Esotericism and the Academy (Hanegraaff)
exoteric religionism vs. esoteric religionism

High Religionism, esoteric, inner, deep, profound, authentic, authoritative, core, valid Religionism — it’s like, Analogical Psilocybin Eternalism. Conforms to the requirements of the Egodeath theory.

low, pseudo-“Religionism”, exoteric, outer, shallow/superficial, trite, aping, fake, imitation, counterfeit — based in Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism, which is the immature developmental stage, because it lacks Psilocybin.

Decoded: The universal psychology that drives world myth:
The mind is innately designed to eat a series of redosed psilocybin doses in order to mature from innate Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism-cognition to innate Analogical Psychedelic Eternalism-cognition.

— Michael Hoffman, the authority on High Religionism
Group: egodeath Message: 9193 From: egodeath Date: 22/09/2016
Subject: Re: The religion of Christian Cybernetic Egodeath
My grandfather was a primitive Christian fundamentalist, pillar of exoteric Western religion.

My father was a Human Potential fundamentalist, pillar of exoteric Eastern religion.

I am a Psychedelic fundamentalist, pillar of esoteric World religion.

— Michael
Group: egodeath Message: 9194 From: egodeath Date: 22/09/2016
Subject: Re: Bk: Esotericism and the Academy (Hanegraaff)
The entire community of esoteric scholars recoiled from Hanegraaff anti-religionism, asking him to be clearer in his cursing of Religionism.

Hanegraaff almost destroyed the viable Esotericism department.

Hanegraaff had to give lip service to the opposite of his view, ContextualISM from Steven Katz, forced to affirm Essentialism research (trying to find Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism in Universal Psychology Esotericism).

Hanegraaff had to assert opposite of his Katzian view.

Hanegraaff must be recognized as a Katzian Contextualist, anti-Essentialist.

The Egodeath theory is successful Essentialism. There *is* a universal psychology basis of Esotericism: transformation from Possibilism to Eternalism on Psilocybin. That’s what Esotericism describes.

How can Hanegraaff the Contextualist *active explicit denier* of universal psychology-based universal religious myth, assert that he advocates *looking for* universal psychology-based universal religious myth?

He continues cursing Religionism while he now is forced to claim that he definitely *supports* a fundamental form of Religionism: looking for universal psychology-based universal religious myth.

Hanegraaff has deconstructed Hanegraaff.

Hanegraaff is unclear, irrational, contradictory like egoic Possibilism.

It is unbelievable when Hanegraaff asserts Katz’ thoroughgoing Contextualism and then turns around and claims, assuages, the rebelling troops of sage wisdom gnosis scholars, that in addition to being a dogmatic a priori Katzian Contextualist, nevertheless Hanegraaff also then claims he supports Essentialism.

SO RETRACT YOUR ASSERTION OF CONTEXTUALISM, or else you are self contradiction.

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 9195 From: egodeath Date: 22/09/2016
Subject: Re: Bk: Esotericism and the Academy (Hanegraaff)
And there was war in the Esotericism department, Hanegraaff and Katz’ Contextualist demons prevailed not, Michael and the Essentialist angels left standing stably based on the reconciled psilocybin fire breathing dragon snake preexisting worldline threat.

— Michael
Group: egodeath Message: 9196 From: egodeath Date: 22/09/2016
Subject: Re: Bk: Esotericism and the Academy (Hanegraaff)
Hanegraaff’s “strict critical historiography vs. Religionism” is a proxy for Contextualism (Steven Katz) vs. Essentialism.

Contextualism vs. Essentialism is what Hanegraaff covertly has in mind when he talks in terms of “strict critical historiography vs. Religionism”.

Contextualism vs. Essentialism must be debated as such.

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 9198 From: egodeath Date: 22/09/2016
Subject: Re: Power of Ideas: Esotericism, Historicism (Hanegraaff)
esotericism ~= “religionism” ~= Essentialism

exotericism ~= “strict critical historiography” ~= Contextualism

Red herring, poor wording: “pure consciousness event (PCE)”, Robert Forman; he ought to say loose cognitive binding.

It’s not important or relevant whether mythic experiencers have a PCE; nor “nonrational”; nor irrelevant social-domain crap that’s the usual referent reductionism domain scholars always assume.

What actually matters is loosecog vs. tightcog. Against Katz & Forman both.

The intense mythic altered state is correctly reduced and explained and decoded and mapped to *Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism*, not to:
pure consciousness event
nonrationality
social domain
mundane moral domain
agency recognition circuit
primitive unevolved psychology

The latter are all false reduction theories of the intense mythic altered state (loose cognitive binding, the source of which is Psilocybin).

Per the Egodeath theory, Analogical Psilocybin Preexistence is the true reduction (referent domain) of the intense mythic altered state.

Book:
Zen and the Unspeakable God: Comparative Interpretations of Mystical Experience
Jason Blum
http://amazon.com/dp/027107079X
Hardcover September 2015
Paperback planned October 2016
Critique of Katz and Contextualism, generally supports Essentialism.

Essentialism asserts there is a universal psychological dynamic underlying all intense mythic altered-state experiencing.

The Egodeath theory has successfully identified the universal psychological dynamic underlying all intense mythic altered-state experiencing.

The universal essence of mythic-state experiencing is analogy describing psychedelics causing a cognitive shift from Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism to Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism.


Contextualism says that there is not a universal psychological dynamic underlying all intense mythic altered-state experiencing, but that the varying expressions of mysticism/gnosticism/esotericism are fundamental (rock bottom) to the mythic altered state.

Per Contextualism, there is only one layer, which is varying. Mythic-state experiencing can completely vary. No aspect constitutes a universal unchanging component.

Aligns with Exoteric religion. Hanegraaff claims that scholarly work is inherently exoteric.

Aligns with Hanegraaff’s “strict critical historiography”.

Hanegraaff makes a hard distinction between scholars and experiential mystics.

I object that scholars can integrate both:
1) mythic-trip and read about mythic tripping
2) interview mythic trippers,

These two modes (respectable scholarship vs. mythic tripping) are actually near to each other, not far as Hanegraaff asserts.


Essentialism says there is a universal psychological dynamic underlying all mystical experiencing, and the surface expression varies.

There are two layers: one unvarying, one varying.

Aligns with Esoteric religion.

Aligns with Hanegraaff’s rejected “Religionism”.

Scholars must do Religionism right: Essentialism per the Egodeath theory (Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism).

The problem is not Religionism; the problem is Religionism that picks the wrong referent, the wrong hypothesis of what universal gnosis wisdom is.

Other university departments reject bad Religionism, which misidentifies the universal referent of gnosis.

Other university departments respect good Religionism, which correctly identifies the universal referent of gnosis per the Egodeath theory and enables accurate tracing of change and development of the outer UI skin layer.


I am a {Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism} Essentialist.

I am an {Analogical Psychotomimetic Preexistence/noncontrol} Essentialist.

I am an Essentialist, and my particular theory — per my DIAMOND HAMMER OF INTERPRETATION, which Hephaestos forged for me — is Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism; Analogical Psychotomimetic Preexistence/noncontrol.

There is a universal psychological dynamic underlying all mythic-state experiencing: the Psilocybin-induced cognitive/experiential switch from
{Literalist
Ordinary-state/antidrug/nondrug
Possibilism/multipossibility branching/steering}
to
{Metaphorical/Analogical
Psychotomimetic/Psilocybin/Psychedelic/Mushroom
Eternalism/preexistence/noncontrol}.


Proper scholarship should identify the unchanging aspect of the mythic altered state as Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism, and should identify the varying surface.

As I have done, map the non-metaphorical core referent of myth, to the various metaphors of religious mythology and Esotericism.

Decode myth and Esotericism into non-metaphorical core theory.

Core theory: myth and esotericism is analogy describing {mushrooms switching cognition from Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism to Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism}.

The core, unchanging referent of myth is {mushrooms switching cognition from Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism to Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism}.

Proper scholarship maps myth and esotericism to {mushrooms switching cognition from Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism to Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism}.

Proper scholarship, that appropriately impresses other departments as truly scholarly, is the tracing of change and development of the metaphorical surface expression, expression of the underlying non-changing perennial wisdom gnosis.

The Egodeath theory precisely identifies and differentiates the core unchanging part and the surface, changing expression part.

The ancient perennial wisdom gnosis is mushrooms switching cognition from Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism to Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism, including how to move trust and dependency, from relying on (standing on) egoic Possibilism-thinking, to relying on (standing on) transcendent Eternalism-thinking.

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 9199 From: egodeath Date: 23/09/2016
Subject: Re: Power of Ideas: Esotericism, Historicism (Hanegraaff)
WH:
not an oppositional situation which does not mean that as a scholar you have to become a practitioner of course there’s a very different– obvious difference between being a practitioner and being a scholar of some esoteric movement.

WH:
but when I’m rejecting Religionism, it does not mean in any way a negative attitude towards close contact and learning from practitioners; on the contrary, these are two different things.

Aud:
… degenerating into Religionism in a certain way
_________

Is the Egodeath scholarly theory an esoteric movement?

Is the Egodeath theory “scholarship”, or is it “a movement”?

Am I a “practioner” of theorizing the intense mythic altered state?

Those Wouter words are magically reified scholarly Psilocybin initiation baskets, Apollo Michael hierophant uncovers the seductive terrifying worldline snake, and egoic Possibilism-cognition is embraced and trapped by the net back into the Rock omphalos navel of Earth.

Apollo Michael marries the fire breathing serpent winged mushroom seizing guard dragon, and abandons the oppositional stance toward Parmeinkowski’s spacetime Iron Metal Rock Block prison of frozen preexisting control cognition at each point along the steersman’s worldline in the next four minutes in Rock that is unstoppably unavoidably approaching climax satisfying demonstration of the High Science of Eternalism Cybernetics.

The most extreme maximum Pop Psycho Cult Religionism practitioners’ esoteric movement, the majick poseurs go running for apotropaic protection in light of the mushroid Authority of the Theory which causes permanent psychosis and ancient perennial contemporary gnosis wisdom.

— Michael Hoffman, the Egodeath theory
Group: egodeath Message: 9204 From: egodeath Date: 23/09/2016
Subject: Re: One-foot limping king lost sandal
Decoded:
one foot on land, one foot on water or lifted

This is the more profound decoding of {1-foot} than Carl Ruck’s relatively mundane literalist mapping to a mushroom.

Which leg does a mushroom rely on? Transcendent thinking, not egoic thinking.

The ancient perennial wisdom gnosis is mushrooms switching cognition from Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism to Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism, including how to move trust and dependency,
from relying on (standing on) egoic Possibilism-thinking,
to relying on (standing on) transcendent Eternalism-thinking.

A turning point, at which I inverted my interpretation of “lifted foot”, was when I interpreted the bestiary Roasting Salamander illustration from Chris Bennett and Jan Irvin, criticized and dismissed by Andy Letcher (aka Tom Hatsis).

I realized then that the raised leg/foot is inferior, not superior.

The lifted foot doesn’t mean “transcendent thinking floats on magic transrationality”.

The lifted foot means “I’m not relying on egoic Possibilism-thinking for rescue, for stability of self-control.

I stop basing my personal control power on Possibilism-thinking. Now I instead *repudiate* (lift foot) Possibilism-thinking.

Now I rest and stand stably on Eternalism-thinking — the threatening snake-shaped worldline dragon, now I rely and depend on and trust the serpent the Creator created, my life and future thoughts frozen in rock preexisting.

I had been working on decoding raised foot Christ Pantocrator for years without satisfactory decoding.

John Rush’s book covers the {raised-foot} mytheme.

Only when I examined as a whole category the Bible and Greek instances of the foot/leg affliction mytheme, I solved it, as a category — not decoding an instance isolated.

Lifted foot means *not* based on.

Foot on ground means based on, reliable, solid foundation.

One foot I am not based on, one foot I am based on.

I am not based on (reliant on) egoic thinking (Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism; egoic Possibilism-steering power.

I am based on (reliant on) transcendent thinking (Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism); pre-existing, fixed-rail steering control.

Hephaestos limps; he relies and stands on and trusts in his transcendent thinking leg (Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism), not in his egoic thinking leg (Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism).

http://google.com/search?q=Jacob+wrestle+angel&tbm=isch

Jacob wrestles the angel God-thinking all night, gets the blessing, then limps.

Before wresting with God-thinking, Jacob had only one leg/basis: egoic thinking (Possibilism steering power).

The night of wrestling with God-thinking, Jacob adds Transcendent Knowledge as a new leg/basis, and is no longer based on egoic thinking (Possibilism steering power).

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 9206 From: egodeath Date: 23/09/2016
Subject: Re: One-foot limping king lost sandal
Why did I recognize Revelation’s angel with 1 foot on land 1 foot on water today, not earlier?

Recently I’ve been continuing to think about Apollo crown of Laurel navel-rock with net trap next to female psychonaut on tripod in rock fissure cave temple with guard dragon Python, and recently that myth’s isomorphic equivalents in Revelation.

http://google.com/search?q=Apollo+Python+Michael+dragon+Revelation+parallels

I was recently quickened and heartened by a psychedelic webpage about that isomorphism, that I deliberately searched for.

I independently noticed the Apollo Python Michael dragon parallels; I figured it out and *then* for the first time read about it.

In contrast, when I looked for Balaam/Paul parallels scholarship around 2000, I came up with nothing, certainly nothing insightful.

http://google.com/search?q=Balaam+donkey+Paul+road+parallels
Fewer hits on Balaam/Paul than Apollo/Michael.

Protestant Rationalist Theology is lame and incompetent and blind to the language of religious myth, which is Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism.

Protestant Rationalist Theology serves to mislead and occlude, more than reveal and uncover.

Protestant Rationalist Theology *veils* Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism, rather than unveiling it.

— the Theory
Group: egodeath Message: 9207 From: egodeath Date: 23/09/2016
Subject: Re: One-foot limping king lost sandal
Decoding yet more myth is becoming redundant like finding yet more mushrooms in Christianity is becoming redundant.

Psychedelic scholars must continue the work of gathering evidence for mushrooms in Christianity.

After some point, additional evidence is relatively redundant, and merely helps assess the *extent* of authentic psychedelic esoteric High Christianity.

To what extent was the Eucharist recognized as mushrooms?

The more evidence we log, the better we can narrow-in toward the “quantified” answer. None? Some? Always?

Some. How big is “some”? Quantify “lots” and “esoteric tradition”.

In the spacetime block, exoteric incomprehension is dreary grey blobs, and esoteric comprehension of Eucharist as mushrooms is exciting orange blobs, all sciencey-like, like Professor Nutt’s Psychedelic Mood Ring brain-aura photography.

How much of the spacetime block has exoteric religion, with grey, the color of dull incomprehension of the mushroid Eucharist?

How much of the spacetime block has esoteric religion, with Lots Of Orange, the color of brightly illuminated comprehension of the mushroid Eucharist?

— the Theory
Group: egodeath Message: 9208 From: egodeath Date: 23/09/2016
Subject: Re: Power of Ideas: Esotericism, Historicism (Hanegraaff)
My agenda is for the Egodeath theory to degenerate into Religionism with a narrowing Religionist agenda of theorizing about Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism.

It is a story of intellectual and moral decline not seen since Allegro, Graves, Irvin, Arthur, Heinrich, Rush, M. Hoffman, Brown, and Brown.

Why didn’t Hanegraaff’s academic suicide posting mention Allegro’s assertion of Jesus’ ahistoricity?

The prisoners of Academia cannot assert Jesus existed, because they will look foolish, and they cannot assert that Jesus didn’t exist, because that is forbidden by the Establishment.

Academics aren’t permitted to touch that forbidden subject of instant academic suicide.

It is a tale of intellectual and moral decline not seen since agent Wasson, Letcher (Hatsis), and McKenna, in their determination to suppress mushrooms in Christianity.

Studying or in any way acknowledging the Egodeath theory is instant academic suicide.

No Jesus or Eusebius, all our religions are based on psychedelic drugs, and there’s no-free-will; we are puppets trapped frozen in rock, our kingly steering power a childish delusion until the snake sent by the Creator brings mushrooms into the mind’s vine-shaped stream of pre-existing mental constructs.

The main theme of the Egodeath theory is that it undermines everything produced by Academia and renders null the need for religion and classics and humanities and Esotericism departments.

Only an Engineering department is needed, to do further research in loose cognitive binding dynamics, plotting out stability regions per Control Systems engineering.

It will be not an academic’s suicide, but the entire disciplines’ ego death and rebirth — the University’s death and rebirth.

The Egodeath theory will be the death of the University as we know it, the end of the University’s childhood of lower higher education.

— the Egodeath theory
Group: egodeath Message: 9209 From: egodeath Date: 23/09/2016
Subject: Re: Power of Ideas: Esotericism, Historicism (Hanegraaff)
Keynote speaker panelists call for study of psychedelic drug induced altered states in contemporary esotericism occulture

Christopher Partridge
1:07:30-1:08:30
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjI_pxQXVi4
Group: egodeath Message: 9211 From: egodeath Date: 23/09/2016
Subject: Re: Bk: Esotericism and the Academy (Hanegraaff)
Hanegraaff tells scholars to learn multiple languages, but Hanegraaff knows one language: Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism.

I know two languages: Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism, and Analogical Psilocybin Preexistence/noncontrol.

The Egodeath theory is the Rosetta Stone to decipher mythic altered state analogy into explicit Theory, mapping between the Egodeath theory and Analogical Psilocybin Preexistence/noncontrol.

Gnosis is Analogical Psilocybin Preexistence/noncontrol; transformation from Possibilism to Eternalism.

Gnosis is transformation from Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism to Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism cognition.

— the Egodeath theory
Group: egodeath Message: 9212 From: egodeath Date: 23/09/2016
Subject: Decoded: The Forbidden Fruit
Decoded: The Forbidden Fruit

Breakthrough: I decoded satisfactorily and adequately at last the mytheme {the Forbidden Fruit}, after years of original research in High Hermeneutics.

Here is how to fully read the Forbidden Fruit analogy in the intense mythic altered state.

This explanation accounts successfully for both the negative and positive valuation of the mushroom gnosis brought by the created snake, negative and positive valuation of being kicked out of the garden, negative and positive aspects of being inside the gated garden in the presence of God.

Why does God forbid himself gnosis/mushrooms?

Why does God suppress mushrooms and thus suppress gnosis/God-cognition?

What incentive does God have for often withholding gnosis/mushrooms from his puppet-creatures?

Why functionally, God forbade mushrooms, as the forbidden fruit, yet sent the snake he created, to bring to the psyche *sometimes*:

to push God’s creatures away from God-thinking into pseudo-separate life as King Steersman.

To create egoic-form life, the Creator must withhold, suppress, and demonize as taboo, Psilocybin, and the gnosis which comes from Psilocybin that is brought forcefully into the stream of cognition that is the rigid worldline snake created by God.

Insofar as the creator/Architect made the worldline snake *bring* the psyche Psilocybin, the creator brought the psyche into the gated guarded forbidden-fruit (mushroom gnosis) walled garden, to be consciously in the company of God, to have God-cognition.

Insofar as the creator/Architect made the worldline snake *not* bring the psyche Psilocybin, the creator cast the psyche out of the gated guarded forbidden-fruit (mushroom gnosis) walled garden, to not be consciously in the company of God, to not have God-cognition, but only creature-cognition, life under the delusion of separation, particularly, the delusion of egoic Possibilism steering power.

God put clothing on Adam and Eve.

Clothing per Robert Oden: _The Bible Without Theology_, which proffers off-base, ordinary-state based social-based “scientific” theory of myth.

Oden failed to recognize myth as analogies for the transformation of cognition to Psilocybin Eternalism.

The top half of the Eden tree snake is Eve (you) naked, not wearing egoic Possibilism-cognition.

God had the preexisting rigid worldline snake bring the psyche clothing and leave the garden: clothing = egoic mask possibility-cognition, moral culpability delusion.

Naked = in conscious presence of God = inside the gated guarded garden with the forbidden fruit, God forbids himself mushrooms in order to create the separate steersman delusion, in some regions throughout the preexisting cyberspacetime Rock Creation.

In the frozen spacetime block, what is the function of lacking-mushrooms?

Why did the programmer of the spacetime block put too few mushrooms into our worldline snakes?

Why does God so rarely make people’s frozen rigid worldline snakes bring mushrooms to the psyche?

What is the functionality accomplished by forbidding and underdosing the world-programmer’s snake creatures so that they usually cannot see that they are snake-shaped worldline kings locked frozen embedded powerless into the Minkowski Stone without any meta-steering power and without possibility-branching, locked into the monopossibility rail.


The tree snake Eve tells you:

Maiden take my hand
I’ll lead you to the promised land
Take my hand
I’ll give you immortality
Eternal youth
I’ll take you to the other side
To see the truth:
The path for you is decided


Egoic separation functionally requires suppression and avoidance of Psilocybin.

The dance of illusion, the stage drama of masks, of separate selves, agents steering themselves through the possibility branching tree — I have another pic of a king in a tree to add to the {king/tree} mytheme.

Joseph Campbell
The Hero with a Thousand Faces
3rd Edition
Page 105
King in a tree:
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/egodeath/photos/albums/89630474

Foolish *ss-eared King Mark is in a tree looking at two women.

The donkey pseudo-king in a tree. The evil king is you, is an aspect of the mind.

The evil king (you) sends a hero (you) to battle the dragon (you) to get gnosis treasure.

Those who overcome, names in book of life, are permitted to pass in and out in peace in the gated garden with snake bringing mushroom-gnosis of Eternalism-cognition.

Those who the creator makes overcome, are made by the creator to pass in and out to the mushroom gnosis tree.

We’re on a mission from God:

FULLY REPEAL drug Prohibition, particularly the proven-traditional Eucharist, Psilocybin.

Eliminate the schedules, in the name of God — against God’s demonic forbidding of himself mushrooms as part of creating egoic delusion-mode life.

— Michael, reporting on-location from inside the gated forbidden-fruit garden in the presence of God not wearing any egoic Possibilism-cognition clothing, not hiding from God
Group: egodeath Message: 9217 From: egodeath Date: 24/09/2016
Subject: Gnosis communicable, Psychedelics technique discipline
Gnosis communicable, Psychedelics technique discipline

Psychedelics require technique and discipline and perseverance, and then gnosis is adequately and profoundly describable in regular, domain-specific language.

Video of a presentation/lecture:
The Role of Gnosis in Western Esotericism
Wouter Hanegraaff
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwQ4G-CoToU
Recommended video lecture about the only-now-recognized centrality of ‘gnosis’.
Just watch the main lecture portion, in English.

Related article:
Reason, Faith, and Gnosis: Potential and Problematics of a Typological Construct
https://uva.academia.edu/WouterHanegraaff
2008

Hanegraaff asserts that we must push aside the over-focus on “what is gnosticism”, stop asking “what is gnosticism”, and start asking “what is gnosis” (frenzy, mania, ecstasis).

Mania and frenzy actually refer to the altered state (loose cognitive binding induced by psilocybin), not to the content of what is thereby revealed (gnosis).

gnosis = Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism; the content revealed by the psilocybin-induced altered state of frenzy/mania. Gnosis = transformation from Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism to Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism.

mania/frenzy = loose cognitive binding (induced by psilocybin)

Hanegraaff makes the striking point that there are tons of studies of “gnosticism” and there are *no* studies of “gnosis”.

“gnosis” is treated — like Hanegraaff *zooms* past “Heimarmene” as if merely a little element among others — as a mere element among others.

He asserts that a conceptual revolution is required where gnosis is placed as the central sun, or peak, around which Esotericism must be re-arranged.

Gnosis is not a minor planet orbiting; it is the central takeaway, boon, blessing, gift, outcome, and central point of esotericism practice (the activity of using SKILLED DISCIPLINED MUSHROOM TECHNIQUE.

The unfair biased problem that mushroom usage has suffered, is that biased scholars contrast supposed highly refined, silently assumed as nondrug, mystic techniques, against unrefined, naive, single-dose use of mushrooms, with zero technique.

Mushrooms can be ingested without technique, or with technique.

The ancient mixed-wine mushroom banqueting tradition was a technique, *not* an inept beginner’s 1-time technique-free ingesting of mushrooms.

Psychedelics are the source of gnosis when psychedelics are used with *technique*.

Mushrooms *with technique and discipline* is a series of measured-dosage mushroom-redosing sessions.

False dichotomy: nondrug meditation has technique and discipline.

Using psychedelics replaces any need for technique and discipline. The false dichotomy goes:

Meditation = sitting, with technique and discipline

Psychedelics = ingesting drugs, without technique and discipline

Consider the cross-combinations that none of the biased commentators on “Meditation vs. Psychedelics” thinks of:

Meditation = sitting, without technique and discipline

Psychedelics = ingesting drugs, with technique and discipline

People obsess on set and setting purely for the purpose of avoiding the shadow.

Psychedelics users should focus on technique and discipline, not set and setting.

The problem with the Acid Test parties is not “poor set and setting”, but rather, the lack of technique and discipline.

Technique: medium-duration psychedelics (psilocybin), redosed, every week, for an entire semester, while studying the Egodeath theory.

Using psychedelics with effective *technique* reliably produces gnosis and effectively engages with the desired demonstration of psychotomimetic revelation of noncontrol with respect to time.

Using psychedelics with effective *technique* reliably produces transformation from Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism-cognition to Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism/noncontrol-cognition.

The shadow is the psyche’s innate desire for demonstrating noncontrol.


Hanegraaff proposes “strict critical historiography” at the same time that he dismisses comprehending a universal underlying psychology-based content of gnosis.

My approach, a form of Hanegraaff 27 different definitions of Religionism, is to begin by accidentally discovering *the content of gnosis* first, and then walking from the Engineering department to the Classics department and confirming that what Classics is struggling to find is that gnosis content which I discovered outside the Classics department:

Hanegraaff incorrectly pronounces can’t even pronounce gnosis.

Hanegraaff pronounces ‘gnosis’ incorrectly; he pronounces it “guh no sis”. Actually the ‘g’ is silent.

My challenge in 1988 in writing up my block-universe noncontrol breakthrough, was not due to the alleged “inability” of language to express and communicate and clearly describe revelation and gnosis.

Supposedly, language works fine to discuss the experiences in human life, except for gnosis.

Rather, suitable usage of language — domain-appropriate skill — is required.

This is yet one more way in which I am the extreme radical deviant: everyone agrees gnosis can’t be communicate in words — but everyone is wrong.

Gnosis can be readily communicated in text postings as I have done.

This requires adequate specialized language skills.

Gnosis cannot be described by egoic noninitiates’ use of words.

Gnosis can be described by transcendent-thinking initiates’ skilled use of words.

In 5th grade, I tested as 11th grade reading level.

I am expert communication.

Gnosis can be fully described, just like everything else in experience, using words.

Gnosis is analogy/metaphor describing psilocybin/psychedelics-induced Eternalism/heimarmene/noncontrol-cognition.

More broadly, gnosis is not just the end-state, but is the full trajectory, of transformation from Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism to Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism.

Gnosis is based in the Eternalism state of consciousness; the mythic altered state, the analogy altered state.

Gnosis is based in Eternalism cognition.

The magazine title is correct: _Gnosis_ (not _Gnosticism_).

That right title is copied by the new journal, titled _Gnosis_.

Hanegraaff is wrong in asserting that gnosis cannot be rationally comprehended or explained in language by one person to another.

I rationally explained gnosis and I readily communicate gnosis in text.

Here we must reject the ancients.

Western exotericism religious authorities are full of baloney.

Eastern exotericism religious authorities are full of baloney.

Antiquity’s exotericism religious authorities are full of baloney: they say gnosis is nonrational and incommunicable in language. Both are false.

Gnosis is rational and readily communicable in language.

That is how Modernity (my approach) is superior to Antiquity.

We must *check* with antiquity, like a Religionist, but we must be ready to dismiss antiquity, like an Enlightenment Rationalist.

Antiquity was right: there is gnosis upon drinking mushroom mixed wine.

Antiquity is wrong that that gnosis is ineffable and incommunicable (as if climax is communicable, and playing baseball is communicable in language, and feeling an itch or physical pain is communicable in language, but gnosis is not communicable in language.

A poll asking people if they experienced the *supposed* 7 traits of “mystic experiencing” (in their weak sensation of nondrug “mystic experiencing”) was able to confirm all the supposed traits, *except* for ineffability.

The poll failed to find people saying that their mystic experience is “ineffable”.

I don’t like the list of 7 supposed traits of “mystic experiencing” — they are not the traits that I would list.

#1 trait of “mystic experiencing”: Eternalism cognition. Timelessness/noncontrol/preexistence/non-meta-steering.

‘ineffable’ is meaningless and vague.

When you ask me if I experience timelessness, it is clear what is meant.

When you ask me if I experience “ineffability”, it is unclear what is meant.

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 9218 From: egodeath Date: 24/09/2016
Subject: Re: Enlightenment = Permanent Psychosis
2/3 of the readers of the Egodeath theory are enlightened.

1/3 of the readers of the Egodeath theory are *insanely* enlightened.


The Egodeath theory is insanely great. So clear, it’s crazy.

— Professor Loosecog
Group: egodeath Message: 9219 From: egodeath Date: 24/09/2016
Subject: Re: Enlightenment = Permanent Psychosis
Hanegraaff vs. Hanegraaff, continued.

Hanegraaff is losing the debate against Hanegraaff.

Hanegraaff argues, against Hanegraaff:

The scholar cannot and should not utilize the altered state, as from LSD.

Scholars have no way of accessing the frenzy mania state, and if they did, they’d be wrong — they would be Religionists, from which no scholarly good can come.

We must study gnosis frenzy mania psychotomimetics and entheogenic drug chemicals and psychedelics.

But we must at all costs avoid Satan, who is Religionism.

The Establishment alliance of Academia with Establishment drug Prohibition makes Hanegraaff dance the Prohibition Twist.

The Platonic Frenzies in Marsilio Ficino
Wouter Hanegraaff
https://uva.academia.edu/WouterHanegraaff
2009
Hanegraaff’s phrases:

ecstatic or trance-like states, experiences, and techniques

mania … a means of ecstatic access to superior knowledge
______
That follows my causal sequence:
1. Ingest the cognitive loosener (in a series of psilocybin redosing sessions).
2. Experience loose cognitive binding.
3. Transcendent Knowledge is revealed.

mushroom = Transcendent Knowledge, through loosecog.

mushrooms –> loosecog –> Transcendent Knowledge
______

frenzies, furies, madnesses

knowledge superior to that of ‘sane’ reason is given … in a state of divine inspiration

the priority of ‘frenzied’ insight over merely profane, rational argumentation

[for ‘rational’, read ‘OSC-based’; “thinking that’s limited to being informed only by the tight cognitive association binding state”]

altered states of consciousness (ASCs). …

Hanegraaff footnote 7 points out Tart’s ASCs included “it is important to realize that Tart’s volume also included non-drug experiences such as hypnagogic states, dream consciousness, meditation, and hypnosis. The same is true of … Baruss _Alterations of Consciousness: An Empirical Analysis for Social Scientists) [AMA 2003], which has chapters for Wakefulness, Sleep, Dreams, Hypnosis, Trance, Psychedelics, Transcendence, and Death.”

Of all these alleged techniques for inducing the true philosophers’ inspired psychotomania frenzy, only 1 technique is sufficiently effective: a series of psychedelic drug sessions done with sustained discipline and technique and study and prayer for stable dependence on the root source snake of preexistent control-cognitions laid out in frozen spacetime.

The other, nondrug methods (an infinite list) are insufficiently effective; they are bullsh-t fraudulent ersatz substitution/ replacement/ displacement/ suppression, psilocybin-avoidance techniques first and foremost.

Psilocybin helps meditation by a factor of 1000, proving that the driving factor or technique is not nondrug meditation, but rather, psychedelic drug chemicals.

Non-drug meditation doesn’t work. Meditation on psychedelics works.

Therefore it’s the psychedelics (used with discipline and technique), not the meditation, that causes Transcendent Knowledge, gnosis, transformation from Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism to Metaphorical Psychedelic Eternalism.

Footnote 8 cites the book Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD. The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond.

Hanegraaff phrases:
psychotomimetic [LSD]
“the madness of insanity and the madness of divine inspiration [=] an ‘esoteric’ understanding reserved for the elite.”

— Michael Hoffman, the insanely great Religionist
Group: egodeath Message: 9221 From: egodeath Date: 24/09/2016
Subject: Re: Enlightenment = Permanent Psychosis
Here is unassailable proof that Hanegraaff contradicts himself when it comes to frenzy.

“we might need to steer a course that avoids both the Scylla of frenzy and the Charybdis of soberness if we want to do justice, as scholars, to what Ficino would like us to discover.” Page 567, _Platonic Frenzies_.

So Hanegraaff tells scholars “avoid frenzy” (he here equates religionism with frenzy), in order to understand what Ficino meant by frenzy.

To understand frenzy, avoid frenzy.

That’s how to be a scholar of frenzy: by avoiding frenzy.

Hanegraaff demonizes and prohibits that which he glorifes and advocates.

Hanegraff asserts kettle logic:
Religionism is bad.
Frenzy/mania/ecstasis is good.
Religionism is frenzy/mania/ecstasis.

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 9222 From: egodeath Date: 24/09/2016
Subject: Hanegraaff incoherently demonizes Religionism
Hanegraaff incoherently demonizes Religionism

Wouter Hanegraaff *must* write an article defining the 27 types of ‘religionism’ that send him into panic seizure, he is white with terror having seen a ghost, the shadowy spectre of dread Religionism, an apparition from Hanegraaff’s unconscious.

Hanegraaff *must* do this, given that his entire advocated model of esotericism scholarship is entirely defined as the negative of “the” Religionism approach.

Just as Protestant and Enlightenment rationalism defined themselves negatively, in relation to discarded knowledge (pagan gnosis, the occult sciences), so does Hanegraaff define his entire theory negatively, in terms of anti-Religionism — but ironically, and tellingly, this purported Religionism which Hanegraaff lives to demonize, is strikingly ill-defined by him.

If Religionism is so very important that good scholarship entirely depends on rejecting Religionism, Hanegraaff needs to do a hundred times better in defining what is and what is not religionism, in his various 27 different varieties of his definitions of what Religionism is.

The psychotomimetic psychosis results, where Hanegraaff’s theory of religious scholarship is incoherent, because he rejects “religionism” but his ‘religionism’ is ill-defined.

Hanegraaff’s own shadow and demon-haunted motivation driving his work, is his ill-digested conception of ‘religionism’.

Hanegraaff’s scholarship is exactly as incoherent as his conception of his own shadow-construction, “Religionism”.

Hanegraaff advocates a technique for esotericism scholarship, which we would rightly identify as “Anti-Religionism” — where “religionism” is a concept invented to Hanegraaff; his own personal demon of his own invention.

Hanegraaff builds his Golem, names it Religionism, and then runs away after seeing a blurry outline of his Religionism Golem.

The only one in the world who knows what blurry demon is meant by ‘religionism’ is Hanegraaff.

Protestantism demonized pagan gnosis.

Hanegraaff demonizes Religionism, defined in a different, contradictory way, each time he explains what Religionism is.

The Egodeath theory demonizes nondrug enlightenment techniques.

The Egodeath theory may rightly be called The Anti-Meditation Theory of Enlightenment — both in 1988 (composing the the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence article as a rebuttal to JTP to publish in JTP) and 2016.

Ken Wilber and the 1988 Journal of Transpersonal Psychology asserted that ego transcendence is nondual consciousness by nondrug meditation.

The Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence 1988 asserted that (on the contrary,) ego transcendence is psychedelics producing loose cognitive binding producing Eternalism-cognition (including noncontrol).

Hanegraaff fails to clearly define the accursed “Religionism” by which he negatively defines his entire theory of esotericism and esotericism scholarship.

In contrast, I clearly define the accursed “Meditation” by which I negatively define the Egodeath theory: the false “Meditation” position which I destroy and demonize and condemn is:

“Enlightenment is nondual oneness unity consciousness through nondrug meditation.

Psychedelics imitate meditation, ineffectively.

Enlightenment comes from meditation.

Meditation is the authority, psychedelics are derivative.”


The Egodeath theory asserts, to the contrary:

Enlightenment/gnosis is psychedelics inducing loose cognitive binding (frenzy, mania, the furies), revealing Eternalism/noncontrol.

Meditation imitates Psychedelics, ineffectively, serving the purpose of avoiding psilocybin and avoiding enlightenment/gnosis.

Enlightenment/gnosis comes from psychedelics.

Psilocybin is the authority, meditation is derivative.

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 9225 From: egodeath Date: 24/09/2016
Subject: Re: Hanegraaff incoherently demonizes Religionism
I don’t reify “religionism”; instead, I always identify it as Hanegraaff’s invention, his own personal shadow projection: it is “Hanegraaff’s reified ‘Religionism’ construction”.

Not “religionism”, but rather, “Hanegraaff’s construction, ‘religionism'”.

Hanegraaff’s religionism

One reading of Hanegraaff’s confused and inconsistent demonizing of his ‘religionism’ construct that he invented, is that this distortion and anguished contradiction within Hanegraaff’s theorizing is a manifestation of dancing the Prohibition Twist, under the distorting conditions of drug Prohibition:

Hanegraaff seems to be saying, under the watchful censors’ eye of the Roman Catholic index of forbidden books:
________

I firmly instruct scholars DON’T DO PSYCHEDELIC DRUGS (only religionist *losers* do psychedelic drugs); rather, *study about* tripping balls.

I make a great show of demonizing and condemning psychedelic drug users, as religionists (that’s bad, religionism).

However, I exempt Benny Shanon; that’s not religionism.

— Hanegraaff
________

Where the f-ck does Hanegraaff draw the line between tripping balls appropriately for scholarly strict *critical historiography*, vs. tripping balls that is profane, anti-scholarly, departmental-reputation-wrecking *religionism*?

Hanegraaff tends to assert:

We must absolutely differentiate between:
o Tripping on psilocybin, and an agenda of psychedelics advocacy.
o Scholarly strict critical historiography reading about and writing about the history of tripping on psilocybin.

So many inconsistencies I found in Wasson, in Richard Evans Schultes’ _Little Golden Book of Hallucinogens_, in Hanegraaff, and in general, self-contradictions asserted by scholars, *Under The Distorting Conditions of Drug Prohibition*.

Deconstruct Hanegraaff, deconstruct all scholarship about gnosis, which comes from psychedelic drug chemicals.

All scholarship about gnosis (which comes from psychedelics, throughout history) is filled with deep self-contradictions, due to scholarship and censorship under the distorting Conditions of Prohibition.

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com (it’s on the Index of Banned Theories)
Group: egodeath Message: 9228 From: egodeath Date: 24/09/2016
Subject: Re: Hanegraaff incoherently demonizes Religionism
Hanegraaff is a closeted Religionist.

First, Hanegraaff’s world was naive and simple:
o strict critical historiography (good)
o religionism (bad)

But then Hanegraaff discovered that the actual basis of New Age — LSD — was completely missed by his New Age book.

After Hanegraaff’s religious conversion, he wrote the article _Psychedelic Esotericism_.

Now Hanegraaff’s story is patched with epicyclic corrections, as:
o Strict critical historiography (good) (limited to exoteric)
o Religionism (bad) (not to be confused with the below)
o Psychedelic esotericism (good)

This psychedelicized Hanegraaff theory is patched together with the same brand of bubblegum Ken Wilber used to attach “also: altered states” to his Integral Theory diagram.

Hanegraaff’s revised and moderately psychedelicized “theory” is held together with the same Scotch-brand tape that Martin Ball’s “theory” of psychedelic enlightenment uses to discuss how to avoid “the shadow”.

There’s something fishy going on around “religionism” in Hanegraaff’s changing thinking.

“Religionism” is a concept Hanegraaff constantly champions, and yet, he never defines it at any length, though he constantly tries to apply it as a firm, most-important demarcation line.

Hanegraaff’s advocated methodology is {strict critical historiography}/{Anti-Religionism}ism.

What does ‘religionism’ *really* mean, secretly, in Hanegraaff’s mind?

Reading about psychedelics blew Hanegraaff’s mind, and he is struggling to revise what he asserted before, prattling ignorantly about “religionism”.

Religionism is the threatening, repressed, unconscious, shadow side of Hanegraaff — the seductive dragon snake worldline monster lurking in his wellspring in his rock cave of cognitive transformation, demanding that the king sacrifice his maiden.

At night, after work at the University of Exoteric Esotericism, Wouter sneaks off to the Religionism speakeasy.

Hanegraaff fulmigates against Religionism like a preacher castigates sexual sin, vaguely, indiscriminately, wildly, uncontrollably.

Hanegraaff acts like “Religionism” is important enough to constantly bring up continuously when defining your advocated position of strict critical historiography , but “Religionism” is not important enough to write an article clearly defining.

“Religionism” is the Forbidden Fruit (viewed negatively) for Hanegraaff.

Cuckoo Stuck Rad, one of the keynote speakers on Western esotericism, one of the exoteric esotericism advocates…said something I object to about esotericism and exotericism.

There’s too much I could comment on as distorted, throughout these exoteric esotericism mis-information from Hanegraaff and Cuckoo.

Everything they say is pregnant with potential, but misfires.

Wouter wrote proudly, “Scholarship is inherently exoteric.” Was that before or after his extreme religionist conversion article, _Psychedelic Esotericism_?

What’s the difference between:
o Strict critical historiographical scholars studying psychedelic history
o Religionism
o Strict critical historiographical scholars tripping on psychedelics

Wouter tells us to study psychedelic esotericism, but beware: he condemns and curses Religionism as an approach to critical historiography.

If you study psychedelic esotericism, are you a Religionist, or a strict critical historiographer?

Hanegraaff praises Shanon. It is completely unpredictable who Hanegraaff will slag as a Religionist.

Is “Religionism” a crypto-word for tripping on psychedelics?

Is “Religionism” a product of drug Prohibitionist discourse?

Given how poorly and inconsistently Hanegraaff has defined ‘religionism’, his construct ‘religionism’ is useless — especially since Hanegraff’s article about his religious conversion, _Psychedelic Esotericism_ — that potentially forced him to deeply revise everything he had previously vehemently asserted.

Theology mis-guiding my thinking, I went to curse Balaam, but to pass through the death gate revealed on the vine path, I looked in the rear-view krater and I saw my personal mask in the transpersonal block universe and I died.

So then I blessed Balaam.

Evil demonic seer, pagan heretic:

Balaam, after the death angel gate, I bless you.


I only type the words that God puts in my fingers.

The best people are those who I (the Creator) fully bring to myself by having my VR world generator create their worldline snakes with lots of mushrooms.

The best people are the most God-cognition people, who are the most mushroid cognition people.

The angels are peaking on psilocybin continually, along with those in the Eden Garden of the Hesperides with Eve dragon guarding the mushroom tree of gnosis about moral agency.

Through the wound in his side was the psyche’s overpowered thought-receiver born.

She took mushrooms with technique and discipline and perseverance and the worldline brought the psyche steering-power death, gnosis, and nondying.


Why doesn’t the Creator generate a world with more worldline snakes that include a full series of high-quality psilocybin redosing sessions that achieve the ideal level of loosecog: rapidly rise to ideal level surfing the event horizon of loss-of-control, stay there as many hours as you want or have time for, and then rapidly descend to baseline.

This is the “steady ideal level” technique.

The ideal loosecog intensity curve: __—-__

The psychedelics method of gnosis uses *TECHNIQUE* and *DISCIPLINE* over an *EXTENDED PERIOD* (f-ck you, Satan Meditatin’!)

The psychedelics method of gnosis (per the Egodeath theory) produces better moral character than meditation — such as not asserting bullsh-t about meditation being “like” psilocybic acid, and bluffing that meditation “CAN” cause tripping/loosecog, when in fact meditation doesn’t come close in ergonomic efficacy.


Yet more Pop Sike Bullsh-t:
“When you get the message, hang up the phone.”

People only can sufficiently get the message — full modern scientific comprehension of gnosis, as a solved problem, in terms of Analogy, Psychedelics, and Eternalism — now, with the Egodeath theory. Not in the 60s.

Since 1997, 2006, and 2013, the world-wide internet has had available the Egodeath theory.

The Egodeath theory provides full modern scientific comprehension of gnosis, as a solved problem, solved simply and elegantly in terms of Analogy, Psychedelics, and Eternalism.

Gnosis is now a solved problem, in terms of Analogy, Psychedelics, Cognitive Phenomenology, and Eternalism/noncontrol.


MEDITATION PRODUCES INFERIOR MORAL CHARACTER compared to the psilocybin technique of enlightenment.

The usual claim is empty, a fart of gas: “Unlike the accursed psychedelic drugs, Meditation produces blessed moral character.” An empty, baseless claim, and the opposite of the truth.

Every monk is a fraud, morally corrupt, a scoundrel and liar, a posturing hypocrite, and an attempted thief of the Holy Spirit, who denies that meditation *came from* psilocybin.

Some “character” meditation produces.

Alan Watts said the purpose of meditation monasteries was to get misbehaving youths off the streets and out of trouble.

Meditators have inferior character.

People who use expert redosed psilocybin sessions to transform cognition from Possibilism to Eternalism have superior character.

Woe to the accursed “strict critical historiographers”!

Their temple will be torn down, with not one stone left standing on another!

I forgot I was speaking in God’s voice and I resumed typing in my own voice telling my own opinions.

At some point above, what I wrote is the Truth from God given to the Hebrews, and at some point my above writing becomes just mortal opinion, error, passing folly headed for wipeout.

— Michael the Prophet of Extreme Maximum Religionism
Group: egodeath Message: 9230 From: egodeath Date: 25/09/2016
Subject: Re: Hanegraaff incoherently demonizes Religionism
The psychedelic method of gnosis uses *TECHNIQUE* and *DISCIPLINE* over an *EXTENDED PERIOD* (f-ck you, Satan Meditatin’!)

The psychedelic method of gnosis (per the Egodeath theory) produces better moral character than (nondrug) meditation — such as not asserting bullsh-t about meditation being “like” psilocybic acid, and bluffing that meditation “CAN” cause tripping/loosecog, when in fact meditation doesn’t come close to psilocybin in ergonomic efficacy, and in practice, meditation serves the purpose of avoiding psilocybin and avoiding gnosis.

— Cybermonk
Group: egodeath Message: 9232 From: egodeath Date: 25/09/2016
Subject: Re: Hanegraaff incoherently demonizes Religionism
When you say “religionism”, are you talking about the pre-LSD Hanegraaff, or the post-LSD Hanegraff?


I’m not interested in publically speculating on any particular person’s experience.

I’m joking about theoretical, theory-related questions that are raised in Hanegraaff’s stumbling progress and revision of thinking.

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com

Egodeath Yahoo Group – Digest 150: 2016-03-06

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Group: egodeath Message: 7795 From: egodeath Date: 21/04/2016
Subject: Re: Best glass oil rig design
Group: egodeath Message: 7796 From: egodeath Date: 21/04/2016
Subject: Cannabis as entheogen
Group: egodeath Message: 7798 From: egodeath Date: 23/04/2016
Subject: The Egodeath theory vs. panacea expectations
Group: egodeath Message: 7799 From: egodeath Date: 24/04/2016
Subject: Re: Intellectual autobiography & origins of Egodeath theory
Group: egodeath Message: 7800 From: egodeath Date: 26/04/2016
Subject: Re: Intellectual autobiography & origins of Egodeath theory
Group: egodeath Message: 7802 From: egodeath Date: 01/05/2016
Subject: Maximal drug policy reform, complete repeal of Prohibition
Group: egodeath Message: 7803 From: egodeath@yahoogroups.com Date: 01/05/2016
Subject: File – EgodeathGroupCharter.txt
Group: egodeath Message: 7804 From: egodeath Date: 08/05/2016
Subject: Transcendent Knowledge podcast
Group: egodeath Message: 7806 From: egodeath Date: 26/05/2016
Subject: Re: The Eternalism Theory of Ego Transcendence
Group: egodeath Message: 7808 From: egodeath Date: 26/05/2016
Subject: Re: The Eternalism Theory of Ego Transcendence
Group: egodeath Message: 7810 From: egodeath Date: 26/05/2016
Subject: Re: The Eternalism Theory of Ego Transcendence
Group: egodeath Message: 7812 From: egodeath Date: 26/05/2016
Subject: Re: The Eternalism Theory of Ego Transcendence
Group: egodeath Message: 7813 From: egodeath Date: 26/05/2016
Subject: Re: The Eternalism Theory of Ego Transcendence
Group: egodeath Message: 7814 From: egodeath Date: 26/05/2016
Subject: Re: The Eternalism Theory of Ego Transcendence
Group: egodeath Message: 7815 From: egodeath Date: 26/05/2016
Subject: Re: The Eternalism Theory of Ego Transcendence
Group: egodeath Message: 7820 From: egodeath Date: 26/05/2016
Subject: Re: The Eternalism Theory of Ego Transcendence
Group: egodeath Message: 7822 From: egodeath Date: 27/05/2016
Subject: Advantage of psilocybin capsules over LSD
Group: egodeath Message: 7823 From: egodeath Date: 27/05/2016
Subject: Re: Advantage of psilocybin capsules over LSD
Group: egodeath Message: 7824 From: egodeath Date: 27/05/2016
Subject: Re: The Eternalism Theory of Ego Transcendence
Group: egodeath Message: 7826 From: egodeath Date: 28/05/2016
Subject: Profit motive for suppressing entheogens
Group: egodeath Message: 7827 From: egodeath Date: 28/05/2016
Subject: Re: Transcendent Knowledge podcast
Group: egodeath Message: 7828 From: egodeath Date: 28/05/2016
Subject: Re: Transcendent Knowledge podcast
Group: egodeath Message: 7829 From: egodeath Date: 28/05/2016
Subject: Re: Transcendent Knowledge podcast
Group: egodeath Message: 7830 From: egodeath Date: 28/05/2016
Subject: Re: Transcendent Knowledge podcast
Group: egodeath Message: 7832 From: egodeath Date: 29/05/2016
Subject: Re: Transcendent Knowledge podcast
Group: egodeath Message: 7833 From: egodeath Date: 29/05/2016
Subject: Re: Transcendent Knowledge podcast
Group: egodeath Message: 7834 From: egodeath Date: 29/05/2016
Subject: Re: Transcendent Knowledge podcast
Group: egodeath Message: 7835 From: egodeath Date: 29/05/2016
Subject: Re: Transcendent Knowledge podcast
Group: egodeath Message: 7836 From: egodeath Date: 29/05/2016
Subject: Re: Transcendent Knowledge podcast
Group: egodeath Message: 7837 From: egodeath Date: 29/05/2016
Subject: Re: Transcendent Knowledge podcast



Group: egodeath Message: 7770 From: egodeath Date: 06/03/2016
Subject: Re: Suppression of entheogen basis of religion
That’s the deal. I support Buddhist meditation if this esoteric Buddhism (Metaphorical Entheogenic Eternalism) is made available to all who desire it.

— Cybermonk
Group: egodeath Message: 7773 From: egodeath Date: 07/03/2016
Subject: Re: Applying core enlightenment to daily thinking?
Metaphysical enlightenment about control, time, and possibility is a practical prerequisite before being able to use psychedelics for general purposes such as Cognitive Science research.

To make psychedelics (cognitive association looseners) safe for utilizing them for various purposes, it is necessary to explore, test, and map out the dangers of vulnerability to loss of control. The would-be user of psychedelics for various purposes asks “Am I vulnerable, is my control reliable, safe, stable, and secure?”

The king asks “Is my throne secure? I will send out spies to test people and look for vulnerabilities, look for ways that my throne can be overthrown.” In this sense, the king (control agent, steersman) ends up working against himself, looking for ways to undermine his power.

Paranoia, suspicion, feedback, a control-seizure vortex, whirlpool, maelstrom builds itself up, a self-reinforcing dynamic structure, a net-trap that catches and ratchets tighter the more the mind identifies and perceives it. To see the vulnerability is to fall prey to the vulnerability, to construct and realize the fatal practical control-loss problem.

Personal control power as normally conceived in the ordinary state is a projected illusion and arrangement of mental constructs which is a convention but is unrealistic, involving an imaginary source of power projected by the mind, the power purportedly originating from and wielded by the virtual ego.

That power is thrown into panic upon perceiving the real situation of where control power comes from.

Control power comes from outside the conscious projected locus of control, and the mind is forced into this perceived configuration, the mind is forced to trust its source of control thoughts; there’s no alternative to falling into line with the perceived situation.

The attribution of control power forcibly is shifted, is made to shift, from the projected virtual ego as the source of control thoughts, to the actual source of control thoughts coming in from outside of the projected, mentally constructed center of control.

Not that you save yourself by deciding to trust; rather, you are *made* to trust when you see that your power comes from not the accustomed imagined locus of control, the projected virtual ego, but rather from the pre-given, unalterable, external source of your own control thoughts.

This is the core of what religious mythology is about. Disempowerment, non-control, nonduality, frozen time, experienced in the entheogen-induced Eternalism state of consciousness.

After learning the unveiled source of control thoughts and therefore learning to trust it and recognizing the way in which your control is inherently vulnerable, the loose cognitive association state (psychedelics) can be utilized for general purposes. Religious mythology helps describe these classic dynamics of control in the loose cognitive state.

Thus we pass through the guarded conditional gate and are able to enter into the garden, the Loose Cognitive Science research laboratory, without getting ejected, thrown out, by control instability confusion.

The requirement in order to be permitted and able to utilize psychedelics, is that we must get religion, which means learning to trust the uncontrollable source of control thoughts, which practically requires literacy of how religious mythology metaphorically describes this process of remapping the source of control power.

Copyright (C) 2016 Michael Hoffman (Egodeath.com). All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 7774 From: egodeath Date: 07/03/2016
Subject: The Eternalism Theory of Ego Transcendence
An alternative to titling my theory “the Egodeath theory” or titling my core theory “the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence”, is “the Eternalism Theory of Ego Transcendence”, where Eternalism also means cybernetic noncontrol and is experientially induced by entheogens (cognitive association looseners).

the Entheogen-Eternalism-Cybernetics Theory of Ego Transcendence

can be abbreviated as

the Eternalism Theory of Ego Transcendence

which can be taken to include the Entheogen Eternalism Theory of Myth.

It’s useful to have flexible labels. Labels aside, I like the structure of having 3 labels:

The overall complete theory
o The half of the theory that covers loose cognition, Eternalism, metaperception, mental construct processing, and cybernetics noncontrol. 1985-1997, with Eternalism/monopossibility explicitly highlighted in 2013.
o The half of the theory that covers religious mythology and entheogens, mapped to the above, core theory. 1998-2016.

Thus I want a set of 3 labels crafted together as a set. Around 2010 I typically wrote:

the Egodeath theory
o the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence
o the Entheogen Eternalism Theory of Myth

Lately in 2016 I lean toward the set of labels:

the Eternalism Egodeath theory
o the Eternalism Theory of Ego Transcendence
o the Entheogen Eternalism Theory of Myth

There’s a tradeoff between concise and precise labelling. Labelling includes sets of verbose and terse labels, eg:

Loosecog
The loose cognitive association binding state

the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence
the Entheogen-Eternalism-Cybernetics Theory of Ego Transcendence

the Egodeath theory
the Entheogenic Eternalism Cybernetics Egodeath theory

The important thing is to separate and cross-map the technical theory of how mental model transformation works, vs. how that is metaphorically described by religious mythology.

Copyright (C) 2016 Michael Hoffman (Egodeath.com). All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 7775 From: egodeath Date: 07/03/2016
Subject: Re: The Eternalism Theory of Ego Transcendence
I have sacrificed alot to refine the Egodeath theory. People must specialize, due to constraints. It can feel daunting to me, how much mundane activity I have to do now to organize my life. It is tempting to escape into what I do best: developing the Egodeath theory. I wish to be free of entrapments of having to take care of mundane business, but the Egodeath theory was always developed under an oppressive to-do list, so this situation now is really about the same as always: in 1985, I struggled to enjoy and be enlightened while happily doing mundane things, balancing the 4 (becoming 5) areas I identified in 1988:

1985:
Engineering (livelihood)
Guitar
Social
Support (mundane tasks)

1988:
Engineering (livelihood)
Transcendent Knowledge
Guitar gear
Social
Support

What I ended up focusing on vs. sacificing:
Focused on:
Engineering
Transcendent Knowledge
Guitar gear

What I ended up sacrificing:
Social
Support

In fact, what I have to catch up on is not just mundane support tasks, but also social.

Other people don’t know about or understand Transcendent Knowledge and religious mythology, because they are too busy with livelihood social and support tasks as well as any special-interest they are committed to. So it was left to me to specialize in acquiring for everyone in a civilized, useful scientific way, Transcendent Knowledge. But I long for, and need a lot of. organizing mundane tasks, as well as social.

Ideally I want to, I have always wanted to enjoy the mundane Support tasks, supported somehow by enlightened Transcendent Knowledge. That was the great expectation and dream initially propelling all of this research in my initial phase 1985-1987.

— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 7776 From: egodeath Date: 08/03/2016
Subject: Re: Suppression of entheogen basis of religion
Group: egodeath Message: 7777 From: egodeath Date: 08/03/2016
Subject: Re: Suppression of entheogen basis of religion
Letcher Hatsis can dismiss the mushroom theory of Christianity by conflating it with Allegro’s secret Amanita cult interpretation and applying the minimal entheogen theory of religion: “Inferior peoples use hallucinogenic drugs in a degenerate phase of religion, but no true Christians used mushrooms. We should interpret mushroom shapes as anything but mushrooms. We should ignore blatant mushrooms because they fail to be what we disprove: a *secret*, *Amanita* cult. Therefore we have disproved the mushroom theory of Christianity.” Richard Evans Schultes (the Golden Guide) and Wasson would approve. There may be mushrooms in others’ religions, but there are not mushrooms in our own religion.

Let Letcher Hatsis try to dismiss the mushroom theory of Christianity while he knows the interpretive paradigm option, the Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion and Culture.

From within this paradigm, it’s a coherent given that religions (for example, the Bible) describe Metaphorical Entheogenic Eternalism and come from visionary plants. The entheogen basis of Christianity is sometimes explicit, sometimes suppressed, sometimes veiled then revealed in the altered state.

This paradigm combines all types of evidence, all evidential data of all types, theory of Eternalism, theory of the altered state, theory of metaphor, and interpretation and cultural analysis.

Letcher Hatsis has been extremely weak at theory and at data coverage regarding the extent of mushrooms in Christianity. He restricts himself to considering Allegro’s theory and analysis, and an inadequate set of art data.

My theory, my interpretation and analysis, my evidential data, and our data now go far beyond the little Allegro bubble that Letcher Hatsis limits himself to in his grand debunking of the entheogen theory of Christianity by attacking the secret Amanita cult as imagined by Allegro.

In Athens, it is not permitted to reveal the mysteries of Metaphorical Entheogenic Eternalism to the uninitiated.

— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 7778 From: egodeath Date: 08/03/2016
Subject: Re: Suppression of entheogen basis of religion
Letcher Hatsis can dismiss the mushroom theory of Christianity by conflating it with Allegro’s secret Amanita cult interpretation and applying the minimal entheogen theory of religion:

Inferior peoples use hallucinogenic drugs in a degenerate phase of religion, but no true Christians used mushrooms. We should interpret mushroom shapes as anything but mushrooms. We should ignore blatant mushrooms because they fail to be what we disprove: a *secret*, *Amanita* cult. Therefore we have disproved the mushroom theory of Christianity.

Richard Evans Schultes (the Golden Guide) and Wasson would approve. There may be mushrooms in others’ religions, but there are not mushrooms in our own religion.

Let Letcher Hatsis try to dismiss the mushroom theory of Christianity while he knows the interpretive paradigm option, the Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion and Culture.

From within this sophisticated, adequate paradigm, it’s a coherent given that religions (for example, the Bible) describe Metaphorical Entheogenic Eternalism and come from visionary plants. The entheogen basis of Christianity is sometimes explicit, sometimes suppressed, sometimes veiled then revealed in the altered state.

This paradigm combines all types of evidence, all evidential data of all types, theory of Eternalism, theory of the altered state, theory of metaphor, interpretation of ahistoricity, and interpretation and cultural analysis.

Letcher Hatsis has been extremely weak at theory and at data coverage regarding the extent of mushrooms in Christianity. He restricts himself to considering Allegro’s theory and analysis, and an inadequate set of art data.

He exclaims that the “Jesus was secretly a mushroom” theory is so easy to disprove, that the whole field of visionary plants in religion has been made to look like a joke not worthy of serious academic study.

Letcher Hatsis limits his thinking to the narrowest Allegro theory, conflates that with the broad entheogen theory of religion, stays ignorant of my sophisticated paradigm, then says that we must drive out Allegro, Rush, Irvin, and anyone else who argues that Christianity has mushrooms.

My theory, my interpretation and analysis, my evidential data, and our data now go far beyond the little Allegro bubble that Letcher Hatsis limits himself to in his grand debunking of the entheogen theory of Christianity by attacking the secret Amanita cult as imagined by Allegro.

In Athens, it is not permitted to reveal the mysteries of Metaphorical Entheogenic Eternalism to the uninitiated.

Low, exoteric, outsider academics are committed to literalist historicist ordinary-state Possibilism.

High, esoteric, insider academics are committed to Metaphorical (including ahistoricity) Entheogenic Eternalism. The only paradigm that succeeds at understanding entheogens in religion including Christianity is this complete theory including ahistoricity and Metaphorical Entheogenic Eternalism.

— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 7780 From: egodeath Date: 08/03/2016
Subject: Re: Suppression of entheogen basis of religion
I would delete post 7777 as a draft, but that would be bad luck.

Ram Dass is often a purveyor of magical and paranormal thinking, and is responsible for entheogen-diminishment fallacies, and propagates the Prohibition-friendly narrative about graduating from psychedelics to meditation.

His fake legend about the guru unaffected by acid — not even getting dilated pupils! — is Prohibitionist propaganda.

Any assertion made by Prohibition is a lie. Half the assertions made by collaborationists with Prohibition are lies.

Ram Dass is just one more suppressor of the truth, an entheogen-diminisher and dissimulator. We’ve heard quite enough from that Prohibition-collaborationist entheogen-diminishing psychedelic old guard, mixing truth and falsehood.

It is imperative that we flip the narrative.

To make progress, we must move beyond the compromised mis-leaders and confused pioneers in the field of entheogen scholarship.

— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 7781 From: egodeath Date: 08/03/2016
Subject: Re: Suppression of entheogen basis of religion
A variation of “follow the money” is follow the book sales or follow the popularity contest. What do people want to be told? What woo will they most buy?

In 1967-1990, consumers of woo in the era of Prohibition want to be told that you graduate from psychedelics to meditation and that the enlightened guru is immune to acid because being enlightened is like blissful tripping 24×7.

So that’s what Ram Dass fed the consumers of woo. He told people what he was permitted to tell them and what they desired to be sold. He sold it and they bought it.

Where there is a demand, there will be a supply. The demand to be told an entheogen-suppressing narrative was due to excessive dosages, overwhelming effectiveness, and Prohibition censorship.

Acid should’ve been in 10 mic doses, not 250 mic doses.

— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 7782 From: egodeath Date: 08/03/2016
Subject: Dosage format for legalizing
Doses should be physically large, fairly pricey, and weak (10 ug), and the dosage and chemical abbreviation should be clearly imprinted on each dose. This gives the right impression about the amount taken.

Add warnings about timing of redosing, and a warning that cannabis increases the effect.

4 HO DiPT or other short-lasting equivalent would have a more ergonomically controllable intensity curve.


When doses are physically tiny, dirt cheap, and very strong, it is too easy to underestimate the amount taken.

— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 7783 From: egodeath Date: 08/03/2016
Subject: Re: Dosage format for legalizing
Advice with a somewhat bitter taste, for harm reduction, needs to give the experiential impression of poison medicine for healing, it should read as taking a hallucinogenic psychotomimetic entheogenic potion.

Copyright (C) 2016 Michael Hoffman (Egodeath.com). All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 7784 From: egodeath Date: 08/03/2016
Subject: Re: Dosage format for legalizing
The antidote should be with it. Brakes for the gas pedal.
Group: egodeath Message: 7785 From: egodeath Date: 08/03/2016
Subject: Re: Suppression of entheogen basis of religion
A kind of dedicated commitment is needed to a paradigm, to develop and use it as a point of reference. Ahistoricist Metaphorical Entheogenic Eternalism is the simplest, most elegant, clearest point of reference with greatest explanatory power.

Fully try ahistoricism, metaphoricity, entheogenic explanation, and Eternalism with noncontrol/monopossibility. Why these components? Parsimony, compactness, potency, concentratedness.

Metaphysical enlightenment can be boiled down to Eternalism, entheogen-induced. The efficient, effective interpretation of religious mythology is in terms of this Entheogen Eternalism.

Ontology isn’t king. Theory Rules.

The most compact, efficient, effective explanatory paradigm is Metaphorical Entheogenic Eternalism. It has the greatest explanatory power. It is the simplest explanation. That’s why the complete Egodeath theory compells commitment as a research paradigm.

— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 7787 From: egodeath Date: 08/03/2016
Subject: Re: Suppression of entheogen basis of religion
Even if the Egodeath theory is true, is it useful and relevant? How useful and relevant is the Egodeath theory?

I lately differentiate practical enlightenment vs. metaphysical enlightenment. Words have flexible meaning. Here by ‘practical’, I mean for daily OSC conduct of life, not referring to practical for scholarship or the ASC.

The Egodeath theory is the most compact, useful, and relevant explanatory paradigm for scholarly R&D and for utilizing the loose cognitive binding state.

— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 7788 From: egodeath Date: 08/03/2016
Subject: Re: Suppression of entheogen basis of religion
My role is not necessarily to prove claims. My role is to define specific claims for the Eternalism Egodeath theory.

The Egodeath theory makes no claims to provide practical enlightenment for self-improvement in daily conduct of life in the OSC.

That was my initial motivation in 1985-1987, to maximize and debug cross-time control integrity and to gain the expected full personal control of thinking, feeling, and action across time.

Then I took a detour 1988-1997 to define core metaphysical enlightenment.

Then I took a detour 1998-2016 to map that to religious mythology.

Now I could return to that expectation, now demoted to the question of “To what extent can metaphysical enlightenment give better personal control integrity and practical effectiveness in daily life?

— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 7789 From: egodeath Date: 08/03/2016
Subject: Re: Suppression of entheogen basis of religion
In 1985-1987, I had no particular desire or passion for metaphysical enlightenment; that was not what motivated me.

What I cared about deeply that motivated me to think and develop ideas, was gaining the expected practical control of my thinking and my actions across time, the ability to plan and do consistently with integrity, not self-conflict, dissonance, or friction.

I only desired metaphysical enlightenment as a seed core around which I would construct the desired thing, which was cross-time control integrity, and incidentally control of thinking and feeling.

Imagine in April 1987 I give me the finished Egodeath theory and I retain my pursuit of cross-time control integrity. Would I still focus on chasing that expected dream-promise, that gold? Or would I, like I did upon discovering the core theory in January 1988, turn my attention away from pursuing the low gold of cross-time control integrity (“worldly power”), focusing instead on the high gold of the Egodeath theory? I’d likely have a sudden decline in paying attention to mundane self-improvement and enjoyment, to propagate the Egodeath theory, which eclipses practical conduct of life in importance, interest, novelty, profundity, intellectual import, and excitement.

— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 7791 From: egodeath Date: 08/03/2016
Subject: Re: Applying core enlightenment to daily thinking?
Metaphysical enlightenment is relevant to practical aspects of life, but not to daily conduct of life except in particular ways in particular lives. Interpretation of religion can affect daily life. Esoteric understanding gives immunization against exoteric religion.

There is some kind of applicability of metaphysical enlightenment to daily conduct of life in the ordinary state, but that overlap is not what we might expect it to be.

By many measures, including some practical measures, the Egodeath theory is tremendously relevant to life.


It is easier to list the specific ways in which metaphysical enlightenment is *not* applicable to daily conduct of life:

Metaphysical enlightenment will not make all your problems go away and give you maximal full control over your thinking, feeling, and actions across time consistently.

Metaphysical enlightenment is not a psychological panacea or a little yellow pill to help you through your busy day.

Metaphysical enlightenment is not like blissfully tripping out being high except without ever having to come back down.

Ram Dass said after his decades of intensive spiritual work, his neuroses have not decreased at all.

After my 1985-2016 30 years of perfect development of my perfect theory of metaphysical enlightenment, my practical psychological problems are the same as before, except I understand the limits of control better.

My understanding of religion and other topics has increased astronomically. I have a theory that changes the world but doesn’t change my practical ability of self-control in daily conduct of life.

— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 7792 From: egodeath Date: 13/04/2016
Subject: Re: Intellectual autobiography & origins of Egodeath theory
Transcendent Knowledge podcast episode 1: Max Freakout interviews Cyber Disciple about his trajectory into the Egodeath theory. In-depth, on-topic.

https://cyberdisciple.wordpress.com/2016/04/06/transcendent-knowledge-podcast-ep-1/
Group: egodeath Message: 7793 From: egodeath Date: 16/04/2016
Subject: Environmental impact of Prohibition
Group: egodeath Message: 7794 From: egodeath Date: 21/04/2016
Subject: Re: 2015 International Drug Reform Conference, entheogen enlightenme
Today is the middle day of UNGASS 2016.

Re-legalize all psychoactives like in the 1800s, eliminate asset forfeiture, eliminate the drug schedules, eliminate enforcement/Prohibition squads, stop punishment for psychoactives, close prisons, release the drug war prisoners, stop spraying poison on crops.

— Michael Hoffman

#ungass2016
Group: egodeath Message: 7795 From: egodeath Date: 21/04/2016
Subject: Re: Best glass oil rig design
I proposed this best design idea. Snake on debranched tree.
Group: egodeath Message: 7796 From: egodeath Date: 21/04/2016
Subject: Cannabis as entheogen
Rather than the artificial UK hallucination that there is such a thing as “skunk” as distinct from cannabis, I propose an actual meaningful distinction: between ingesting cannabis via lungs versus stomach.

Hypothesis: Ingesting cannabis via stomach is entheogenic.

— Michael Hoffman (Egodeath.com), April 20, 2016
Group: egodeath Message: 7798 From: egodeath Date: 23/04/2016
Subject: The Egodeath theory vs. panacea expectations
The Egodeath theory vs. panacea expectations and marketing-promises

Recent books advocating no-free-will argue that society would be better. It’s a leading-edge hot topic. If we follow the inherent trajectory from entheogens, we naturally end up mostly in the OSC with mostly Possibilism, qualified by the powerful experiential perspective of a series of transient revealings of Eternalism in the ASC.

We do not end up naturally in a permanent altered state with thoroughgoing Eternalism perspective. Advocates of no-free-will have a brittle extremist model that we must choose Possibilism or Eternalism, a binary wholesale choice.

Speculating on the pros and cons of no-free-will for society is like speculating on whether enlightenment will solve all our problems in daily practical life and self-management. Or speculating on what would happen if we re-legalized.

Entheogen advocates speculate on what would happen to save the world and save the planet if society integrated visionary plants. We must recognize speculation as such. Prohibitionists constantly state as fact that the sky would fall if we stop ratcheting up Prohibition and stop allowing civil asset forfeiture and mass incarceration.

“We must sent the right message — ie escalate the WoD — or our youth will succumb and society will collapse; we need total war against this threat or else society will collapse. We need infinite weapons including spraying poison and driving growers into clearcutting the rainforest, to avert this crisis. Legalizing would cause the sky to fall.” Advocates of various positions put forth lots of conjecture, often stated as fact, about what would happen if.

The Egodeath theory brackets-off any speculative promises that entheogens and no-free-will/monopossibility are a panacea that will cure society and the planet and personal self-control management.

The proven benefit of the Egodeath theory is that it gives a degree of coherence and lots of explanatory power. Beyond that is marketing of conjectures.

Most entheogen advocates and most no-free-will advocates and most nonduality enlightenment advocates sell their position as a panacea. I am instead committed to *sound theory*, bracketed off from conjectured outcomes of universal complete assent to the Entheogenic Eternalism Egodeath theory and what the outcome and results of that assent would be.

The Egodeath theory is not motivated by pursuing conjectured outcomes, but rather is motivated by explanatory power and worldmodel coherence explaining what we perceive in the transient ASC.

I’m putting all focus on getting that right. Not promising that the world will be a better place, except I promise that the world will be a more conceptually coherent place.

In our long wish list to save society and the planet and personal management, I fulfill one particular wish: the wish for conceptual coherence and explanatory power.

I advocate re-legalizing like in the 1800s, but I’m not selling that by promising society will be saved, promising a grand vision for future society. The Egodeath theory is revolutionary as an explanatory paradigm — this does not imply the Egodeath theory will save society and the planet and fulfill our untrammelled wishes and expectations.

I work as an activist alongside advocates of enlightenment and relegalizing and no-free-will and ahistoricity, but without selling and marketing and promising the conjectured speculated practical benefits — I’m cautious and skeptical and somewhat pessimistic. Where success is guaranteed is in *explanatory power*, not outcomes for society and the planet and personal self-management/conduct of daily life.

Revelation promises whiter whites in perfected laundry, peace between the threatening lion and the lamb, justice, repairing the soul and world, and universal reconciliation. Fine visions and motivations. Sober cautious attitude needs to accompany the motivating vision.

What we can confidently celebrate now is coherent successful theory of the dynamics and trajectory of the loose cognitive state and theory explaining the history of the altered state in religion and culture.

We can celebrate the definite surge of drug policy reform and the rapid spread of ahistoricity, bringing conceptual coherence, such as explaining the lack of physical evidence for the existence of Christianity in the early centuries, and explaining the mushrooms in religious depictions throughout history.

I do not unreservedly celebrate the destruction of exoteric literalist Christianity.

Certainly Prohibition is a harm-maximizing fraud and must end. Problems will exist; the Egodeath theory and the explanatory enlightenment it brings is not a panacea and wish-fulfillment projection canvas.

— Michael
Group: egodeath Message: 7799 From: egodeath Date: 24/04/2016
Subject: Re: Intellectual autobiography & origins of Egodeath theory
Episode 2: Max Freakout’s trajectory into the Egodeath theory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyrqfBbc8Mc

Phase 1 of my development of the Egodeath theory focused on self-control limits in light of Minkowski/Parminides block time; metaperception; and loose mental construct association binding. 1985-1997. The technical core, without mythic metaphor.

Phase 2: history, myth, religion, metaphor regarding Phase 1 topics. 1998-2016
Group: egodeath Message: 7800 From: egodeath Date: 26/04/2016
Subject: Re: Intellectual autobiography & origins of Egodeath theory
Egodeath Theory and Rock

The Egodeath theory came up through Rock, within the 80s college band network 1982-1988.

The last part of my Phase 1, after the 1988 breakthrough, was mapping Rock lyrics to the Egodeath theory, early 1990s.

Bowie and Prince were notable before and during the creation of the Egodeath theory.

I saw Prince last year, he ROCKED.

I inherited an excellent Prince painting on my dorm wall 1986-1987, the dramatic time of the creation of the Egodeath theory. I have pics.

I made a good effects Special Prince Mix like the Residents’ Beatles mix. I have the double-speed master cassette.

We were initiated in a Space Oddity psychedelic oil light show graduation before high school in the legalization window of the late 70s bay area.

It was the high 80s, the Egodeath project:

lead-in starting such as Spring semester 1985 encounter group spiritual self-help ideas,

taking a productive new approach in writing and idea-development when my father died in Spring 1987,

climaxing Spring 1988.

Each of those are turning-points.

Lots of 60s, 70s, and 80s Rock, is the ground from which the Egodeath theory came up, electrical music engineering.

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 7802 From: egodeath Date: 01/05/2016
Subject: Maximal drug policy reform, complete repeal of Prohibition
Maximal drug policy reform, complete repeal of Prohibition

Drugs are the vehicle of the Holy Spirit given by God, who makes people ingest them, or who hides himself from them.

Prohibitionists are now being put on trial and are recognized as a harmful, destructive, toxic menace to society.

Support, favor, pardon, compensate, and respect the victims of the WOD. Release, pardon, apologize, restore voting rights, help and favor the fraudulently accused and persecuted people.

Stop government involvement in drug regulation.

Eliminate the drug schedules.

End civil asset forfeiture.

The UN digs its heels in and refuses to do the action that Mexico has cried out for: stopthedrugwar.com

The UN did a coverup to hide any acknowledgment of the legalization revolution in formation all around the incorrigible UN dead-set on absolute Prohibition.

The falsely so-called consensus document of UNGASS 2016 says only one message: we refuse to quit Prohibition.

The UN refuses to acknowledge the revolution around them pressing in on them from all sides, coming from Washington and Colorado, and coming at them from a rapidly growing mainstream majority turning against Prohibition, demonization, and harm-maximization.

Mexico called the UN to meet sooner than 2019, in an emergency session to change the treaties, their interpretations and implementations to end the WOD in Mexico.

The UN consensus outcome document was delivered back to Mexico and sent out into a global dissensus.

The death-penalty-for-drugs nations produced this forced consensus document: we will persist in militarized harm maximization, and persection shall continue as official policy.

The UN refuses to acknowlege Mexico’s request for regime-change. The UN met to cover-up Mexico’s call for them to meet. The UN refuses to permit a debate on the Prohibition treaties or acknowledge the increasing demand for debate and for repealing Prohibition and for harm reduction.

The UNGASS 2016 official finale song and dance — the three days of 4/20 week after a year of preparing their coverup of the dissent — their rehearsed performance of “everyone agrees that Prohibition is good”, was delivered to widespread and increasing dissent inside and outside the walls. The UN inner circle perpetuators of death penalty and harm maximization are being fought against from all sides.

The more intransigent the UN becomes, the more radicalized people and groups are quickly becoming, to not only reform Prohibition, but eliminate the current regime entirely, get rid of the schedules, legalize everything, completely repeal Prohibition, roll it back to where it didn’t exist, in 1850. Prohibition is toxic and must be eliminated.

The treaties are harmful. Prohibition is harmful. The world is increasingly rejecting the treaties and repealing Prohibition.

Every factor is increasingly pointing to the full elimination of Prohibition, re-legalizing everything.

Any change would be better than Prohibition, which is harm maximization.

‘Decriminalization’ means no change; continuing the official escalation of Prohibition.

The government cannot be trusted to regulate; they have forfeited any say or involvement.

The opposite of Prohibition, taken to the maximum, is the most beneficial. That is the consensus outcome of half the world after the UN presented the consensus outcome document to Mexico: completely repealing Prohibition is required now, and all the more so, since the UN treaties refuse to stop ratcheting-up Prohibition.

The UN policy has become
the death-penalty-for-drugs nations’ policy.

The UN restated their official consensus position statement, omitting the demonizing 1998 slogan “a drug-free world, we can do it”.

Legalization, complete repeal of Prohibition, is the legitimate and right way.

The government should not be involved in psychoactives regulation and has no authority on it; they have forfeited their credibility. It is wrong to disparage substances.

The government is corrupt and malicious and has no authority to regulate or meddle or advise or be involved in any way.

Prohibitionists forfeited everything, all credibility, all legitimacy, and are revealed as criminals and con artists, purely harmful, malicious people attacking others under the pretense of helping society.

Prohibitionists owe reparation to the victims of Prohibition.

Eliminate the officials and organizations who are fighting certain drugs, particularly cannabis.

We didn’t need government regulation of psychoactive drugs in 1850; from the beginning of time until late modernity, the world didn’t need Prohibition.

Prohibition pretends to be about health, but that is a lie, a con, a fraud, a put-on. Prohibition is motivated instead by illegitimate profit and by racism and to suppress anti-war people, by Nixon through his drug schedules.

Past and future use of entheogens is set in stone. Controller X made Prohibition and repeal happen at this point in the frozen timeless Eternalism block, temporarily closing and then opening the door to mushroom-revealed Eternalism.

The more the UN Prohibitionists refuse to acknowledge the revolutionary rejection of Prohibition by the nations, the louder and more insistent and widespread are the demands for complete repeal of Prohibition.

Radical drug policy reform, complete repeal of Prohibition, has become the mainstream position, against the Prohibitionists, the sham now exposed. The Prohibitionists are recognized as the real enemy, by the mainstream.

The calls for complete repeal of Prohibition are quickly increasing, while the UN reaffirms their WOD death penalty escalation and harm maximization.

The UNGASS 2016 consensus outcome document confirms that the UN policy is harm maximization, death penalty, demonization, and environmental harm.

A Prohibition-free world by UNGASS 2019, we can do it!

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 7803 From: egodeath@yahoogroups.com Date: 01/05/2016
Subject: File – EgodeathGroupCharter.txt
The Egodeath Yahoo group is a Weblog sent out by Michael Hoffman,
covering the cybernetic theory of ego death and ego transcendence,
including:

o Block-universe determinism/Fatedness, the closed
and preexisting future, tenseless time, free will as illusory, the
holographic universe, and predestination and Reformed theology.

o Cognitive science, mental construct processing, mental models,
ontological idealism, contemporary metaphysics of the continuant
self, cybernetic self-control, personal control agency, moral agency,
and self-government.

o Zen satori, short-path enlightenment, and Alan Watts;
transpersonal psychology, Ken Wilber, and integral theory.

o Entheogens and psychedelic drugs, mystery religions, mythic
metaphor and allegorical encoding, the mystic altered state, mystic
and religious experiencing, visionary states, religious rapture, and
Acid Rock mysticism.

o Loss of control, self-control seizure, cognitive instability, and
psychosis and schizophrenia.


— Michael Hoffman
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath
http://www.egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 7804 From: egodeath Date: 08/05/2016
Subject: Transcendent Knowledge podcast
Episode 3

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ykgeO6CD6RM

– The uptake of a radical new paradigm
– The various established explanatory paradigms within popular psychedelia
– The psychotherapy model of entheogen use
– New Age nonduality theories such as Martin Ball’s entheological paradigm, and its limitations
– Neuroscientific studies of entheogens such as recent research from Robin Carhart-Harris
– Physicalist and idealist perspectives on entheogens
– Different versions of no-freewill
– Altered state revision of implicit assumption frameworks
– Psychedelics as “assumption revealers”
– Plato’s cave allegory and its application to altered state phenomenology
– The effect of the altered state on ancient Greek culture
– Interpreting classical literature in light of altered state dynamics
– Carl Ruck’s writing on ancient culture and entheogens
– Minimal, moderate and maximal theories of entheogen history
– Botanical identification of entheogenic plants in ancient culture
– Various writers in entheogenic history of religion such as Scott Teitsworth, Clark Heinrich, Dan Merkur and Gordon Wasson
– Academic self-reinforcing feedback loops and resistance to radical paradigm revision
– Limitations of John Allegro’s entheogenic theory of Christianity
– Luther Martin’s book ‘Hellenistic religion’ which emphasises heimarmene as a key concern of ancient religion
– Over-emphasis on Eleusis in academic writings on ancient mystery religions
– Michael Rinella’s book ‘Pharmakon’
– The entheogen-diminishing strategy of relegating entheogens to footnotes and introductions
– The importance of placing entheogens front and centre in historical study
– Luke Timothy Johnson’s entheogen diminishment in his writing/speaking on Christianity
– William Alston’s book on religious experiencing ‘Perceiving God’
– Alston’s concept of ‘over-riders’ which invalidate religious experiences
– Tom Hatsis’ writings on entheogen history and witchcraft
– The distinction between Michael Hoffman’s writing style and the theoretical content
– Academic scholarship vs. Internet scholaship
– Blindness to prohibitionist assumptions among drug policy reform activists
– Hatsis’ dismissal of entheogen theory of Christianity
– Hatsis’ study of scolpolamine plants in ancient witchcraft practises
– Drug policy reform activism and outrageous anti-drugs propaganda
Group: egodeath Message: 7806 From: egodeath Date: 26/05/2016
Subject: Re: The Eternalism Theory of Ego Transcendence
‘Entheogen, spiritual, mystical, religious, God’ – the problem with these words or constructs is not that they are artificial, arbitrary, culturally constructed, or imported/ inserted/ overlaid.

Rather, understanding of these terms is too vague, prior to having the Egodeath theory.

When a person ingests cognitive looseners, the person often reports religious experiencing — truly and rightly, but too vaguely, until understanding the Egodeath theory.

The mind recognizes religious experiencing, upon switching from Possibilism to the Eternalism mental model of time, self, and control.

Labelling this experiential mode as ‘religious’ is no more arbitrary than labelling this experience as ‘ego death’.

Without the Egodeath theory (the Eternalism/Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence), the term ‘ego death’ is vague and indirect, and people debate what ‘ego death’ refers to.

There is nothing culturally fabricated about ego death (properly identified), or about religious experiencing (properly identified).

Ego death, religious entheogenic experiencing, the mystic-state cybernetic revelation (unveiling), is a real, specific dynamic capability or function of the mind, regarding personal control power, but what ‘religious experiencing’ or ‘entheogenic experiencing’ refers to must be properly specified and identified: personal control power reconfiguration in the shift from Possibilism to the Eternalism mental model of time, self, and control.

The mind has the potential to switch from Possibilism to the Eternalism mental model of time, self, and control.

The mind can have either of these two mental models and experiential modes: Possibilism and Eternalism.

When the mind switches from the Possibilism mental model and experiential mode to the Eternalism mental model and experiential mode, the mind (informally yet intensely) recognizes this as the shift into religious experiencing, correctly labelling Eternalism consciousness as entheogen, God consciousness, spirituality, religious experiencing.

Hallmarks: cessation of feeling of originating control from the local control agency.

Feeling externally controlled.

Feeling cybernetically disempowered, centering control around external factors (that which is the source of control-thoughts).

Dependency of local, Possibilism-shaped agency’s control-power on a more underlying, overarching source of control power.

The forced, necessary requirement (recognized fact of dependency and epiphenomenal illusion) of local control depending on more ultimate transpersonal control — local control has to consciously trust in the transcendent source of control, because the latter is manifestly (when tested and inspected) the basis, source, origin of local control power.

Critics of the supposedly culturally constructed and arbitrary language of ‘entheogen, mystic, religious, God, spiritual’ should not dismiss these terms, but need to accurately identify their referent as {the shift of experiential understanding of personal control power, upon changing from Possibilism to Eternalism in the loose cognitive binding state induced by psychedelics}.

— Michael Hoffman
Copyright (C) 2015 Egodeath. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 7808 From: egodeath Date: 26/05/2016
Subject: Re: The Eternalism Theory of Ego Transcendence
Critics say that it is arbitrary to describe psychedelics as entheogenic/mystic/religious/spiritual.

In fact psychedelics’ main effect is switching the mind from Possibilism to Eternalism, as a mental model and experiential mode of thinking and feeling.

This switch from Possibilism to Eternalism is the real referent of religion, mysticism, and spirituality.

In fact, therefore, psychedelics’ main effect is producing religious experiencing, in that psychedelics’ main effect is switching the mind from Possibilism to Eternalism, and the switch from Possibilism to Eternalism is the main referent of religion, mysticism, and spirituality.

Entheogens reveal God or the divine, which specifically means that psychedelics produce the shift from Possibilism thinking and experiencing, to Eternalism thinking and experiencing, including ego death, loss of the sense of locally originating personal control power, and unity specifically regarding control-power origination.

The source of a particular mind’s control-thoughts is experienced and recognized as the same as the source of every mind’s control-thoughts.

When a mind is in Eternalism consciousness, or God-type consciousness, that mind perceives that it is firmly connected with the same source of control-thoughts that drives all minds, including crazy and destructive minds.

Individual minds are forced to think and do and feel, what the source of all thoughts has caused and pre-created them to be doing and feeling and thinking, at all points in each person’s worldline frozen in spacetime.

The Egodeath theory directly and explicitly (per modern Science) expresses and identifies these dynamics, unlike perennial philosophy, which is indirect and filled with arbitrary noise such as superficial correspondences taken literally.

— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 7810 From: egodeath Date: 26/05/2016
Subject: Re: The Eternalism Theory of Ego Transcendence
People try to pit reason against religion.

High reason is high religion.

Reason needs to be informed by the altered state, of loose cognitive binding.

Religion comes from psychedelics, which produce a shift from Possibilism to Eternalism.

Religion proper is informed and produced by the altered state.

Low reason is against low religion such as literalism.

What’s needed is recognition of high religion by high reason.

Altered-state reason recognizes the referent of altered-state religion.

Sam Harris advocates no-free-will and pits it against religion; he failed to recognize high religion, which asserts or reports no-free-will.

Degraded Science is pitted against degraded religion; neither is informed by the altered state.

People start in the OSC; they first think about both Science and religion in terms of the initial state of consciousness, which is the Possibilism state of consciousness.

Later, some minds receive entheogens and develop the Eternalism state of consciousness, which recognizes high religion; the result is high Science, Loosecog Science, rightly scientific when understanding is direct and explicit about transformation from Possibilism to Eternalism.

Psychedelics are directly about transformation from Possibilism to Eternalism, and are indirectly about religion, God, mysticism, entheos, and spirituality; the latter terms are indirect. The Egodeath theory is direct.

The New Testament mocks exoteric literalism, using the idea of veiling understanding and then selectively revealing/unveiling the actual meaning and referent of religious myth and metaphor.

Posing a riddle and revealing the resolution.

— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 7812 From: egodeath Date: 26/05/2016
Subject: Re: The Eternalism Theory of Ego Transcendence
1. A mind is made to ingest psychedelics (an event in frozen spacetime with preexisting future).

2. Psychedelics cause loose cognitive binding.

3. Loose cognitive binding produces Eternalism-consciousness.

4. Eternalism-consciousness is labelled as ‘religion’, ‘mysticism’, ‘spirituality’, ‘entheos’.

5. High, esoteric religion is taken by non-experienced minds in the low, exoteric sense. But now step 3 is developed per Science together with explaining step 4, preventing that reductionist misunderstanding of ‘religion’ as low, exoteric religion.

— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 7813 From: egodeath Date: 26/05/2016
Subject: Re: The Eternalism Theory of Ego Transcendence
American modern rational scientific atheist Buddists/meditators are calling for Buddhism stripped of the superstitious irrational hocus-pocus of karma-and-rebirth. But with misunderstanding; failure to recognize 2-state meaning- switching; failure to recognize metaphor describing entheogen-induced transformation from Possibilism to Eternalism.

The goal of right-mindedness is to stop being reborn *into egoic, Possibilism thinking* after each *altered-state egodeath* experience.

The goal is to retain a clear, mature, full mental model of that which is revealed in the loose cognitive state. Not to stop literal rebirth after literal death.

The goal of entheogenic meditation is to end egoic, Possibilism-premised expectations of full personal control power.

— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 7814 From: egodeath Date: 26/05/2016
Subject: Re: The Eternalism Theory of Ego Transcendence
Entheogens produce religion rightly understood; high mysticism; esoteric spirituality.

Entheogens directly produce the shift from Possibilism to Eternalism.

When ‘religion’ is mistaken to mean low, exoteric religion, it’s wrong to characterize psychedelics as entheogenic.

When ‘religion’ is recognized as high, esoteric religion, it is correct, though vague and indirect or roundabout, to characterize psychedelics as entheogenic.

Psychedelics are psycholytic (loosening of cognitive binding) and through cognitive loosening, psychedelics are directly Eternalism-producing.

By virtue of producing Eternalism-consciousness, psychedelics are, indirectly speaking, entheogenic.

Psychedelics are the source of religion, which is an indirect way of saying that psychedelics produce Eternalism-consciousness, including timeless noncontrol (that is, a transformation of the fundamental assumption-set about personal control power).

Religion proper — high, esoteric, original, source religion — is Eternalism-consciousness, which is induced by psychedelics.

— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 7815 From: egodeath Date: 26/05/2016
Subject: Re: The Eternalism Theory of Ego Transcendence
Would-be rational Western modern Buddhists are really wanting high, Esoteric Buddhism, rejecting low, exoteric Buddhism.

This hot current debate (looking for authentic Buddhism without magical supernatural superstitious thinking) is resolved by the Egodeath theory, which explains the relationship between exoteric, misunderstood religion (in all religions) and esoteric, recognized religion.

The entheogen eternalism Egodeath theory explains Literalist OSC Possibilism in relation to Metaphorical Entheogenic Eternalism.

Books by Stephen Bachelor et al.

— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 7820 From: egodeath Date: 26/05/2016
Subject: Re: The Eternalism Theory of Ego Transcendence
Group: egodeath Message: 7822 From: egodeath Date: 27/05/2016
Subject: Advantage of psilocybin capsules over LSD
Short duration, combined with redosing, to quickly reach the ideal cognitive loosening and stay at that level and then rapidly descend to tightcog when desired. Like ancient mixed wine usage.

— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 7823 From: egodeath Date: 27/05/2016
Subject: Re: Advantage of psilocybin capsules over LSD
Thread: Advantage of psilocybin capsules over LSD
Group: egodeath Message: 7824 From: egodeath Date: 27/05/2016
Subject: Re: The Eternalism Theory of Ego Transcendence
Osto presents a limited view from within dominant assumption-sets — he provides a study limited from within the conventional debate between conventional Western Buddhism and conventional psychedelic spirituality.

The Egodeath theory originates from outside that convention. Thus incommensurate paradigms; not to say those conventional debaters couldn’t understand the Egodeath theory, but rather, their debate positions fail to engage with my third option.

Similarly, the debate between impoverished (ordinary-state) atheism vs. impoverished (ordinary-state) religion: that debate has little to contribute, and the Egodeath theory stands outside that limited domain of debate.

Psychedelics vs. Buddhism, and atheism vs. religion, are failed initial theories, that fall before the entheogen Eternalism Cybernetics Egodeath theory. Those debates appear to offer two alternatives, but really, each debate amounts to a little cage: the unimaginative cage of psychedelics vs. Buddhism, and of atheism vs. religion. Neither has any traction to critique the Egodeath theory.


Overestimating amount of psychedelics experiencing: few writers on religion or psychedelics have a significant amount of loosecog experiencing. Almost all who write on the subject are dabblers, beginners. Benny Shanon is not a dabbler. A few mushroom and MDMA experiences barely qualifies a writer as a beginner. Most books about psychedelics are written by dabblers interviewing rank beginners.

Copyright (C) 2015 Egodeath. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 7826 From: egodeath Date: 28/05/2016
Subject: Profit motive for suppressing entheogens
Suppressing entheogens is in the interest of many, various parties and industries.

It’s in the financial interest of the Buddhist church to suppress and deny that meditation came from entheogens.

It’s in the interest of the Catholic church to suppress and deny that Christianity came from entheogens.

It’s in the interest of the American meditation industry to suppress and deny that meditation came from entheogens.

False authorities profit by the strategy of selling placebo ineffective meditation in place of actual effective historically grounded visionary plants, which are the actual source of meditation and enlightenment.

Demonize and de-legitimize the real, effective approach to meditation and spirituality — visionary plants — and perpetually sell people inert, ineffective, empty promises that are never fulfilled, and sell the never-fulfilled, substitute promise of religious fulfillment to them in place of the effective original source of religion — visionary plants.

Drug-free meditation serves to prevent enlightenment and transcendent fulfilment — psychological maturation and completion of transformation — in order for false authorities to profit.

Not “back to the texts” per the Reformation, but rather, *back to the plants*, per the real reformation, the Entheogenic Reformation.

The *moderate* entheogen model of religion serves to block the truth and prop up a false, substitute story that profits the pretended authorities on religion. The maximal entheogen theory of religion breaks that bogus profit model; which theory, is political and economic.

The Establishment status quo is propped up on a foundation of lies: the pretence that entheogens are a mere simulation, or are at best an alternative to authentic historical origins of religious experiencing.

Entheogens are *not* an alternative, semi-legitimate means of religious enlightenment and psychological fulfillment; entheogens *are the* authentic, efficacious means of religious enlightenment and psychological fulfillment.

Drug-free meditation is inauthentic and ineffective — and is a fraudulent means for false authorities to profit.

The tradition of artificial substitute religion obscures and puts entheogens off-limits, to profit from a false history of how religion comes about.

Sell the evil (delusion-sustaining) moderate entheogen paradigm to people, in such a way that while you relucantly admit that psychedelics are effective like the promised potential of your artificial religion product, frame psychedelics as artificial and illegitimate.

Trick people into taking as granted that no true religious person used psychedelics for enlightenment, moral regeneration, or enlightenment. Where evidence proves that a religious person used visionary plants, treat this as a bad data point that doesn’t count.

Sell books by striving to diminish the use of psychedelics in religion and Plhilosophy.

The Establishment, invested in the strategy of lies and suppression of entheogen history and efficacy, will pay you, like they paid Letcher, to write incoherent, self-contradictory, and specious arguments, only permitting bits of evidence to be discussed, badly, then pretend to have debunked the overall entheogen theory of religion.

Then when your falsehoods and flimsy arguments are exposed, quietly and privately admit this, while continuing to sell your book that’s a heap of weak arguments, paid by the Establishment press.

It’s in the financial interest of the paper products industry to suppress and deny that hemp is a better source.

It’s in the financial interest of the pharmaceutical industry to suppress and deny that cannabis cures many ailments.

It’s in the financial interest of the pharmaceutical industry to suppress and deny that laudanum and simple natural poppy extract taken via stomach have a long history and are effective.

Follow the money, trace and recognize the conflict of interest, track the incentives to profit from suppressing the truth.

Who profits by falsely demonizing psychoactives? Who pays, as an investment, to prop up Prohibition? What industries profit, by lying, for Prohibition for Profit? Who funds the fight against repealing Prohibition?

Religious posers as authorities profit by claiming that they, rather than visionary plants, provide religion (and do so by people perpetually giving them money).

Tricycle magazine, Zig Zag Zen, Altered States: Buddhism and Psychedelic Spirituality in America, the Gnosis issue on psychedelics, and the latest pseudo-enlightened books about psychedelics, sell in a way that’s profitable to Establishment interests, by permitting the acknowledgment that visionary plants are dimly like religion and meditation, but severely limiting and containing, circumscribing and quarantining, this acknowledgment.

Only permit writings that stay within the boundaries of the entheogen-diminishing moderate entheogen model of religion. Prevent writings that escape that cage and recognize the true, maximal entheogen theory of religion.

Prostitutes all, selling their integrity by the strategy of displacing entheogens, these parties use a strategy of substituting themselves and their fabricated ineffective products, selling indulgences and suppressing the natural products that actually deliver the promised effects and originated the effects.

Demonize psychoactives in order to fabricate false, harmful industries of militarized policing-for-profit, imprisonment-for-profit, destruction of other lives for your own crooked profit, an income based on lying and destruction.

There is an enormous difference between the moderate vs. maximal entheogen models of religion. These are two opposed models of history and the world and of the nature and source of religion.

Saying psychedelics are “like” meditation and religious transformation, is the opposite worldmodel as recognizing that psychedelics are the *source* of meditation and religious transfiguration — financial profits are affected.

Drug-free religion and meditation are evil — delusion-sustaining — when they deny and suppress their entheogen origin.

Authentic meditation is entheogen meditation or at least acknowledge the efficacious entheogen origin of meditation.

Revealing the truth of the entheogen origin of Christianity is of ultimate importance, but also crucial for pop Western spirituality is revealing the truth of the entheogen origin of meditation.

Entheogens are not “like” meditation; meditation *comes from* entheogens.

Meditation does not come from drug-free meditation; that’s a profoundly false, and delusion-sustaining origin story — the great entheogen cover-up, a strategy pursued by many parties, who profit by selling a phony, ersatz, fraudulent, and harmful substitute for the actual source of religion and enlightenment: visionary plants.

It’s a universal strategy of profit through substitution of ways that promise but never deliver, in place of the way that delivers on the promises and is the source of religion — visionary plants.

Psychedelics are not easy, cheating, a shortcut, an unnatural way to steal enlightenment. Drug-free religion is the false, fraudulent, ineffective, phony, evil, ersatz substitute, that serves to prevent religious enlightenment while endlessly profiting the false authorities.

The revolutionary Reformation is the maximal entheogen theory of religion.

What stands in the way of Reformation is the effort to contain and suppress the actual origin and efficacious means, psychedelics — that effort is Zig Zag Zen and the narrow range of views permitted, various degrees of grudgingly damning entheogens with faint praise, debating whether the artificial simulation provided by psychedelics should be accepted or not, and shutting out any thinking in terms of {religion comes from psychedelics}.

How many “enlightened” writings on psychedelics consider whether religion comes from visionary plants, as the normal, grand front entrance, relegating drug-free means as merely a side door or back-door entrance?

Thinking is gradually heading in that direction. At the top of that hill already is a mansion waiting, built, completed: the Egodeath theory.

One means of accessing religious consciousness is illegitimate and ineffective, a simulation, ersatz: the “anything but psychedelics” model of religion.

Psychedelics are not a simulation of meditation; rather, drug-free meditation is a simulation of entheogens.

This revelation stands against the many artificial, fraudulent industries that are based on a foundation of lies and substitution, replacement of entheogens by profitable false promises and false history, the tradition of lying for profit, substitution-for-profit, the profitable replacement of efficacious entheogens by inefficacious and inauthentic approaches that never deliver and are therefore ongoing sources of profit — selling indulgences, in place of the genuine Eucharist which regenerates and fulfills.

— Michael Hoffman
Copyright (C) 2015 Egodeath. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 7827 From: egodeath Date: 28/05/2016
Subject: Re: Transcendent Knowledge podcast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0YMy392UXE&feature=em-subs_digest

Cutting edge conversation between Max Freakout and Cyber Disciple. In this episode Max and Cyb talk about Martin Ball’s entheological paradigm – his model of entheogenic ego transcendence, and how it relates to the ego death theory. Topics covered include:

A review of the various explanatory paradigms in pop-psychedelia

Martin Ball’s various activities, and his attitude of public openness towards entheogens

Ball’s entheological paradigm, its relation to religion and new age systems of thought

Ball’s critiques of entheogen scholars such as Terence Mckenna, his opinions about Mckenna’s 2012 prophecy and reification of DMT machine elves

Ball’s concept of spatial non-duality and its relation to block universe determinism/eternalism and cybernetics

Ball’s concept of energy and its relation to loosened cognition
Ball’s concepts of “ego”

Mental representation and perceiving the true nature of reality in the altered state

Propositional/epistemological truth compared to accurate modelling

Michael Hoffman’s theory of dual mental worldmodels

Cultivating mindful states of awareness

Martin Ball’s entheogenic yoga postures

Ken Wilber’s non-entheogenic model of non-duality

Expectations of what enlightenment ought to be

Potential for disappointment with altered state eternalistic enlightenment

Indigenous shamanistic interpretations of entheogens and their potential to heal or benefit

Ego-as-agent and ego-as-awareness
Platonist philosophy and its relation to the ego death theory

Martin Ball’s treatment of control loss and bad trips

Pros and cons of smoking tryptamines instead of oral ingestion

Ramifications of Martin Ball’s excessive focus on 5-meo-dmt

Inaccuracy of scientific claims about DMT being present in the brain
Intellectual commitment to the entheological paradigm

Ball’s lack of metaphor-savviness

Meaning of letting go or surrendering in the altered state

Ball’s hands-on entheogenic therapy sessions


https://cyberdisciple.wordpress.com

Begins with a review of the typical paradigms in contemporary pop psychedelia.

Main content of the episode is a critique of Martin Ball’s Entheological Paradigm as representative of New Age psychedelic spirituality.
Group: egodeath Message: 7828 From: egodeath Date: 28/05/2016
Subject: Re: Transcendent Knowledge podcast
Control, rather than unity, is the heart of enlightenment and ego death and mental worldmodel transformation.

The necessary proper center of the scientific, rational, efficient model of ego transcendence is control, not unity. A theory centered on unity is unstable and premature.


Sacrifice is of control assumptions.
Sacrifice is central.

Controller x makes the mind sacrifice; the center of action-initiation is the divine, not the agent/puppet.

You are rescued by you adopting repentence – but the driver of this action of sacrifice is {that which creates/controls all control-thinking}.

The sacred meal sacrifice-affirmation banquet party is initiated by the god, not by the awakened follower.


No-free-will is experienced and is directly related to control power. No-free-will is found across religion, psychology, and philosophy. Unity is a rare topic.

Knowledge of good and evil is control agent relevant. Moral schemes are for control. Enlightenment is knowledge of egoic control thinking (Possibilism and egoic moral control punishment-threats and rewards) and transcendent rethinking of the moral control model.

Newbies experience (spatial) unity, oldhands experience control loss/ limitations/ constraints/ sacrifice.

Mental transformation isn’t forced by unity, but by control dynamics/ disproof/ failure/ emergency/ crisis/ seizure/panic.

Control-overpowering is the heart of Mitrhras bull sacrifice & figure of crucified king/ controller/ steersman, Dionysus’ boat steersman follower.

Acid-inspired Rock seeks to reflect the most intense experiencing: control-loss, not unity sensation.

We are, first and foremost, control agents. Ego death is the making-fail of control. Ego death is not caused by unity consciousness. The beginner’s initial experience of unity leads to subsequent profoundly problematized control.

Trusting (recognizing the source of control-thoughts) and surrender is not about unity, but about the foundation of personal control power.


Martin Ball glorifies 5-meo-dmt and hasn’t used lsd. Unlike acid-rock lyricists who ultimately report on the control-loss panic enlightenment shock.

Mythic imagery depicts control loss, above the concommitant rock-universe unity experience and mode of mental worldmodel.

Trembling transformation occurs by threatening control, by learning how to trip up and make control fail, not by mere unity sensation.

Unity sensation is at the threshold of control-preservation panic and attraction, seduction.

The strange attactor leading to fascinating death and reconfiguration is potent control-death, not impotent unity sensation. Unity-focus is a substitute for control-failure and transformation.

Theory of religion centered on unity protects and sustains delusion and Possibilism-thinking. Control dynamics reveal Eternalism, causing the mythological classical described effects, and mental model transformation.

Unity experiencing causes little mental model transformation. Control failure causes the deep transformation described by religious myth.

— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 7829 From: egodeath Date: 28/05/2016
Subject: Re: Transcendent Knowledge podcast
Ball mis-leads people in that he leaves them, like Wilber and drug-free meditation, vulnerable and unstable, without a durable, clear, specific (scientific) model to reconcile the control-limit realization.

Woe to the advanced tripper who is only armed with Wilber and Ball — they are irrelevant and unhelpful when it is time to sacrifice control-assumptions and adopt the classic innate transcendent Eternalism control-assumptions.

Those writers are not wrong, so much as halting prematurely, and inadequate as the requisite, stabilizing guides to mental-model reconfiguration.

The Egodeath theory recognizes in religious historical writings the depiction of the control threat and the nature of {being made to sacrifice control-assumptions}.

The Egodeath theory unlocks the wealth of religious descriptions of encountering Eternalism, noncontrol, metaperception, loose cognitive binding, and cybernetic death and reconfiguration.

Trembling, seizure, control death, sacrifice, and rescue from control-harm — Ball provides vague “trust”, surrender, and unity — true so far as his explanations go, but falling well short of advanced psychedelic experiencing and asking the crux of problematizing questions, a passionate pursuit of ecstatic shock and rapture, the taking and overpowering of the control-thought-receiver by the source of all control-thoughts.

Ball and all are halfway there, at best; providing a preliminary setup, but not arriving at the real full-fledged, explicitly explained dynamics of mental-model transformation in the loose cognitive association binding state, which is induced by psychedelics.

— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 7830 From: egodeath Date: 28/05/2016
Subject: Re: Transcendent Knowledge podcast
Bob Daisley’s Diary of a Madman song order starts with unity experiencing placed in the beginner stage, with no-free-will, and noncontrol puppethood in the later, advanced peak stage.

Entheogen knowledge or theory is immature, outside the Egodeath theory. Ball is a beginner-to-intermediate acting as the guide for beginners. His theory of surrender and trust is inarticulate and vague, though correct and useful for a crude, little-developed rescue or salvific life-preserver – he provides minimal life preserver.

Knowing to trust per Ball, you’ll survive but not comprehend the dynamics of relying consciously in the uncontrollable source of preexisting control-thoughts. Nor leverage religion’s description of sacrifice, stone, king, tree, snake, conversion, gateway, prayer.


Watching my body disappear into the crowd

Destiny planned out
The little doll is you
Group: egodeath Message: 7832 From: egodeath Date: 29/05/2016
Subject: Re: Transcendent Knowledge podcast
From Unity Possibilism upon initial trips (start of Side 1):
Watching my body
Disappear into the crowd
You don’t need a ticket to fly with me
I’m free, yeah

To Noncontrol Eternalism upon furthur trips (start of Side 2):
Destiny planned out
Nowhere to run
Your fate is in his hands
Your time has come
You’ll live to his command
I’m warning you
The worst is yet to come
Your kind of troubles
Running deeper than the sea
When it’s your time I wonder how you’ll do
You broke the rules
You’ve been a fool
The little doll is you

The current ill-informed fad of entheogenic *unity* experience, with the barest vague note of requiring “trust and surrender” without real explanation, is a sign of inexperience, beginner to intermediate level, sophomores leading freshmen, lacking the authority of full mature experience, of full mental development restoring a new stability.

Ball is a false authority, just as meditators with decades invested in simulated cargo-cult imitative meditation lack authority — not yet having put personal control on trial and discovered how to trip up control and seduce it into climactic failure leading to control-power death and rebirth in new, eternalist configuration.

— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 7833 From: egodeath Date: 29/05/2016
Subject: Re: Transcendent Knowledge podcast
A benefit of full entheogenic initiation is completed mental maturation, full psychological development: the ability to be stable and enter into the loose cognitive state while retaining stability while demonstrating the ability to steer in and out of personal control instability.

Analogy: the trusting wife submitting to being overpowered. Ariadne peacefully trusting Dionysus to steer the chariot in the wedding procession victory triumph. Ancient conceptions of s*x and marriage and birth were heavily shaped by entheogen cybernetic loosecog Eternalism analogies.

The mind that is not fully developed cannot pass through this gate, fails to meet the required conditions, is not allowed to banquet in peace and stability, but is in strife, kicked out of the walled gated garden banquet party by control-turmoil, battling against the mind’s own foundation source of control-power.

— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 7834 From: egodeath Date: 29/05/2016
Subject: Re: Transcendent Knowledge podcast
Religious metaphor mythology analogy description, when misread per Literalist OSC Possibilism, misleads and hinders.

Religious metaphor mythology analogy description, when read per Metaphorical Entheogenic Eternalism, amplifies and clarifies.

Prohibition is samsara is Possibilism, the illusion of nonunity separate control agents with the power of steering into the open multipossibilty future.

Prohibition blocks the bursting of childish thinking. The result is virgin adults, developmentally stunted childish adults who think as a child (noninitiate), retaining the immature, Possibilism delusion.

Repeal of Prohibition is nirvana is Eternalism. Snakes embedded in rock. Replacing the epiphenomenal illusion of autonomous control by recognition of a pair of distinct interrelated cybernetic functions: the local control-thought receiver, and the veiled uncontrollable source of control-thoughts, that which created the spacetime block including control-thoughts.

Semele wanted Zeus to reveal himself to her. He revealed his power, perceiving his power killed her power, and Semele gave birth to Dionysus, a new model steersman paradigm.

— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 7835 From: egodeath Date: 29/05/2016
Subject: Re: Transcendent Knowledge podcast
The Egodeath theory explains religious mythology.

Religious mythology corroborates the Egodeath theory.

The Egodeath theory and religious mythology elucidate each other.

The ability of the Egodeath theory to make sense of religious mythology corroborates the Egodeath theory.

I first received the riddles of mythology upon reading Ken Wilber’s Up from Eden around 1987. There is a little religious mythology in my initial drafts for the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology in 1988 and in my 1997 summary at Principia Cybernetica.

JTP should publish one of my 1988 drafts of my main article, fulfilling resolution. My snakes demolish Wilber’s snakes.

— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 7836 From: egodeath Date: 29/05/2016
Subject: Re: Transcendent Knowledge podcast
Per Maslow, the mind’s highest appetite or drive is self-transcendence.

The Egodeath theory provides this benefit: the most efficient way to self-transcendence, the highest-level fulfilment, fully efficient fulfilment of the mind’s highest-level drive, direct fulfilment of the mind’s drive for self-transcendence.

— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 7837 From: egodeath Date: 29/05/2016
Subject: Re: Transcendent Knowledge podcast
Neurosubstitution and Neuroreductionism

It is a certain *kind* of reductionism (as with Martin Ball) to mis-indentify beginner-to-intermediate-level phenomenology (nondual unity, with the added inarticulate ‘shadow’ + ‘surrender’ epicyclic corrections) with advanced-level phenomenology (noncontrol Eternalism seizure, battling dragon gating access to treasure demanding the sacrifice of the maiden princess, the ruler’s childness).

The full developmental cycle is *reduced* to the first half of the developmental cycle. A truncation type of reductionism.


James Kent Neuroreductionist? James Kent’s PIT Psychedelic Information Theory defines a certain blend of cognitive, neuroscience, and the altered state.

PIT is a heap of psychedelics-focused neurowhatever with a decorative dash of cognition; experience-description like Shanon Antipodes. His focus on neuro makes for underattention to cognitive phenomenology.

I weave together my specialized optimized custom lexicon with shared standard common lexicon. My ‘mental construct processing’ & ‘loose cognitive binding’ + our ‘cog sci’ = ‘loose cognitive science’.

Between neurowhatever and cogsci,
a useful bridge is Thagard’s network node modelling + the Egodeath theory’s mental construct processing & loose cognitive binding (loose cognitive science, cognitive psychology, philosophy of mind (with the altered state added), cognitive phenomenology (Shanon includes ASC). Thagard’s contrast of neurocomputing vs. nodal modelling.

My model from early 1987 is neutral/ flexible/ agnostic regarding representation-nodes vs. distributed: mental construct association matrixes. My approach circumvents that distinction at issue, by identifying a more directly, experientially relevant conceptual construct: mental construct processing (MCP), including loose cognitive binding.

Thagard as bridge between the cogni vs. neuro paradigms:

Cognitive science
Thagard’s modelling
Neurocomputing/neuroscience

Where people ought to be thinking largely (if not entirely) in terms of cognitive phen and mental construct association & representation networks, dynamic mental-construct association matrixes, they substitute writing in terms of neural networks. Reduction, distortion, a proxy subject.

Neuro has its place, in multistate studies, but should not covertly substitute for the direct modelling of cognition. The Egodeath theory doesn’t draw from Neuroscience, but is close to CogSci.

The least off-base approach is CogSci. It doesn’t take too many fixes to enable CogSci to fit the Egodeath theory. Neuroscience requires heavy modification, to link to the Egodeath theory.

The Neurofoo paradigm/framework should not lead away from and mis-lead, should not serve to shut out and avoid the cognitive representation/ cognitive phenomenology/ mental construct processing approach. Representationalism vs. distributed network, a debate within cogsci/philomind.

Neurotheology – with and without the ASC. High vs. low neurowhatever.
Neuroreductionism
Neuroshamanism
Neurocognition
the Neurocognitive approach
Neurofoo
Neurowoowoo
Neurorepresentationalism
Neurophenomenology
Neurogullibility
Neuropseudoscience
Neurocargocultism
the Neurocult
Neurosubstitution for cognitive phenomenology
Neurospirituality
Quantum Neurodynamics
Nondual quantum neurobullshamanism will set you free and give you the blissful enlightenment you’ve always dreamed of.
Magic dust: a dash of quantum, a pinch of neuro, a sprinkle of shaman, ready for market

High neurowoowoo is superior to low neurowoowoo.

The neuro vs. cogni approaches, with and without ASC/ loose cognitive binding.


Neuroscience serves as a proxy covertly substituting for cognitive science (mental construct processing and loose cognitive binding per the Egodeath theory). Where you should discuss mental construct networks and binding shift, you substitute a discussion of neural networks.

This is a debate within cognitive science/ philosophy of mind, of PDP parallel distributed processing and the Churchlands’ neural nets, as an approach/ explanatory model, vs. cognitive — though the ASC is omitted.

Cogsci discusses hardware (neuro) vs. minds/software (cogni), distributed net (Churchland) vs. modular symbols/ nodes/ representationalism. Thagard chapters on competing computer modelling approaches: Churchland’s [pdp] approach vs [opposite, approaching the Egodeath theory’s MCP+LCB component].

The {mental construct representation} aspect of cogsci. My {mental construct association matrixes} model has both representation-node and distributed-network qualities.

— Michael Hoffman

Egodeath Yahoo Group – Digest 130: 2015-01-05

Site Map


Group: egodeath Message: 6658 From: egodeath Date: 05/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
Group: egodeath Message: 6659 From: egodeath Date: 05/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
Group: egodeath Message: 6660 From: egodeath Date: 05/01/2015
Subject: Re: Recognizing all forms of egoic freewill religion
Group: egodeath Message: 6661 From: egodeath Date: 05/01/2015
Subject: Re: Recognizing all forms of egoic freewill religion
Group: egodeath Message: 6662 From: egodeath Date: 05/01/2015
Subject: Re: Recognizing all forms of egoic freewill religion
Group: egodeath Message: 6663 From: egodeath Date: 06/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
Group: egodeath Message: 6664 From: egodeath Date: 06/01/2015
Subject: History of Eternalism, Block Time, Block Universe Determinism
Group: egodeath Message: 6665 From: egodeath Date: 06/01/2015
Subject: Acronyms and abbreviations
Group: egodeath Message: 6666 From: egodeath Date: 06/01/2015
Subject: God created Drug Prohibition and Drug Policy Reform
Group: egodeath Message: 6667 From: egodeath Date: 06/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
Group: egodeath Message: 6668 From: egodeath Date: 06/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
Group: egodeath Message: 6669 From: egodeath Date: 06/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
Group: egodeath Message: 6670 From: egodeath Date: 06/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
Group: egodeath Message: 6671 From: egodeath Date: 06/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
Group: egodeath Message: 6672 From: egodeath Date: 06/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
Group: egodeath Message: 6673 From: egodeath Date: 06/01/2015
Subject: Re: History of Eternalism, Block Time, Block Universe Determinism
Group: egodeath Message: 6674 From: egodeath Date: 06/01/2015
Subject: Re: Recognizing all forms of egoic freewill religion
Group: egodeath Message: 6675 From: egodeath Date: 06/01/2015
Subject: Re: Recognizing all forms of egoic freewill religion
Group: egodeath Message: 6676 From: egodeath Date: 06/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
Group: egodeath Message: 6677 From: egodeath Date: 07/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
Group: egodeath Message: 6678 From: egodeath Date: 07/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
Group: egodeath Message: 6679 From: egodeath Date: 07/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
Group: egodeath Message: 6680 From: egodeath Date: 07/01/2015
Subject: Re: Might allow hiding your email address
Group: egodeath Message: 6681 From: egodeath Date: 07/01/2015
Subject: Re: Might allow hiding your email address
Group: egodeath Message: 6682 From: egodeath Date: 07/01/2015
Subject: Re: Recognizing all forms of egoic freewill religion
Group: egodeath Message: 6683 From: egodeath Date: 07/01/2015
Subject: Re: Recognizing all forms of egoic freewill religion
Group: egodeath Message: 6684 From: egodeath Date: 07/01/2015
Subject: Re: Recognizing all forms of egoic freewill religion
Group: egodeath Message: 6685 From: egodeath Date: 07/01/2015
Subject: Re: Recognizing all forms of egoic freewill religion
Group: egodeath Message: 6686 From: egodeath Date: 07/01/2015
Subject: Re: Recognizing all forms of egoic freewill religion
Group: egodeath Message: 6687 From: egodeath Date: 07/01/2015
Subject: Re: Recognizing all forms of egoic freewill religion
Group: egodeath Message: 6688 From: egodeath Date: 07/01/2015
Subject: Re: Recognizing all forms of egoic freewill religion
Group: egodeath Message: 6689 From: egodeath Date: 07/01/2015
Subject: Re: Recognizing all forms of egoic freewill religion
Group: egodeath Message: 6690 From: egodeath Date: 07/01/2015
Subject: Re: Recognizing all forms of egoic freewill religion
Group: egodeath Message: 6691 From: egodeath Date: 07/01/2015
Subject: My correction of today’s Christianity
Group: egodeath Message: 6692 From: egodeath Date: 08/01/2015
Subject: Re: My correction of today’s Christianity
Group: egodeath Message: 6693 From: egodeath Date: 08/01/2015
Subject: Re: My correction of today’s Christianity
Group: egodeath Message: 6694 From: egodeath Date: 08/01/2015
Subject: Re: My correction of today’s Christianity
Group: egodeath Message: 6695 From: egodeath Date: 08/01/2015
Subject: Re: My correction of today’s Christianity
Group: egodeath Message: 6696 From: egodeath Date: 08/01/2015
Subject: Re: My correction of today’s Christianity
Group: egodeath Message: 6698 From: egodeath Date: 08/01/2015
Subject: Re: My correction of today’s Christianity
Group: egodeath Message: 6699 From: egodeath Date: 09/01/2015
Subject: Re: My correction of today’s Christianity
Group: egodeath Message: 6700 From: egodeath Date: 09/01/2015
Subject: Re: My correction of today’s Christianity
Group: egodeath Message: 6701 From: egodeath Date: 09/01/2015
Subject: Re: My correction of today’s Christianity
Group: egodeath Message: 6702 From: egodeath Date: 09/01/2015
Subject: Re: My correction of today’s Christianity
Group: egodeath Message: 6703 From: egodeath Date: 09/01/2015
Subject: Re: My correction of today’s Christianity
Group: egodeath Message: 6704 From: egodeath Date: 09/01/2015
Subject: Eternalist Entheogenic Catholicism Throughout Spacetime Rock Block
Group: egodeath Message: 6705 From: egodeath Date: 09/01/2015
Subject: Turning around Supreme Court’s fallacious assumption
Group: egodeath Message: 6706 From: egodeath Date: 09/01/2015
Subject: Re: Michael
Group: egodeath Message: 6707 From: egodeath Date: 10/01/2015
Subject: Re: Michael
Group: egodeath Message: 6708 From: egodeath Date: 10/01/2015
Subject: ‘God’ is a label for the meta-steering control that we don’t have



Group: egodeath Message: 6658 From: egodeath Date: 05/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
It would be most worhwhile to trace in my posts the trajectory of these threads of research including the January 21, 2014 follow-on solutions of the staff of Asclepius, Moses’ brass snake on a pole for healing (Jesus is compared to that in the New Testament), and Jesus’ stauros/ pole/ stake/ tree/ cross; king Jesus died/swooned on a “tree”, hung from the tree.

“My established principle or recognition that snake means eternal world model and my hypothesis of branching myth themes, and my work on interpretation of tree of knowledge of good and evil, which were two or three separate research threads, suddenly were placed in direct contrast, not merely accumulation.”

Roots in 2003: heimarmene-snake posts.

2006, 2007: eternalism first post.

2011-2012: stag hydra typhon crossroads mushroom branchless trees: initial tentative hypothesis that *nonbranching* (of possibilities; monopossibility) is the principle being depicted.

2013 peak; confirmation beyond my greatest expectations of what confirmation of the hypothesis is possible!!: the threads come together in Cranach’s painting “Eve tempted by serpent”, supplemented by Douris’ Jason/snake kylix. Head of person on snake body often positioned *where tree trunk meets branches of tree* (I’m introducing this newish latter point the past couple days).

2014 follow-on confirmations: staff of Asclepius, Moses’ snake on pole; Heracles’ club; Abraham’s ram caught in a bush. Any pair of key mythemes (king ram bush tree snake pole) implies the entire system of analogies describing entheogens revealing Eternalism.

A “new” breakthrough realization of mine always has roots, less well interconnected though.

— Michael Hoffman, theorist of ego death
Group: egodeath Message: 6659 From: egodeath Date: 05/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
Parrallelomania: Greek myth vs. Bible mytheme-pairs:

Tree in the garden of Hesperides (jason/snake kylix) =
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden of Eden

Staff of asclepius =
Moses’ brass snake on a pole

King Pentheus in a tree (Dionysus)
King Jesus hung from the tree/cross

— Michael Hoffman, the interdisciplinary theorist of ego death
Copyright (C) 2015 Michael S. Hoffman (Egodeath.com). All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 6660 From: egodeath Date: 05/01/2015
Subject: Re: Recognizing all forms of egoic freewill religion
Any system that doesn’t assert Eternalism, asserts Possibilism.

Any system that isn’t experiential preserves Possibilism thinking, and fails to actually produce Eternalism thinking.


Any system of Transcendent Knowledge that doesn’t centrally emphasize:

Eternalism (monopossibility, possibility nonbranching, no-free-will); clarity about the essentials; experiential cognition

defaults to advocating:

our original sin; Possibilism (multipossibility, possibility branching, free will); confusion about the essentials; nonexperiential cogitation


The Egodeath theory is the ultimate Eternalism-advocating, sytematic, simple, pure, consistent, principled, STEM system of Transcendent Knowledge.

I criticize Quantum Physics, nonduality spirituality, Ptolemaic astral ascent mysticism, Gnosticism, Neoplatonism, and Catholicism, and moderate Calvinism, and hyper-Calvinism with PSA and ECT.

Thise are false and ineffective systems, because they aren’t centered on the experiential shift from Possibilism to Eternalism. They fail to recognize interdisciplinary connections.

Only the Egodeath theory is an efficient, clean, STEM-conformant, effective system of Transcendent Knowledge.

Only the Egodeath theory is explicitly centered on the experiential shift from Possibilism to Eternalism, including entheogens, loose mental construct processing per a proper STEM Cognitive Science analysis, and mapping to religious mythic metaphor.

The Egodeath theory explains specifically why other systems are failures, so it is the superior and ultimate, true and correct explanatory framework of our religious revelatory potential of the mind, conformant with Sam Harris’ Cognitive Science assertion of no-free-will.

The Egodeath theory is superior to such assertions and represents the complete ultimate development of Cognitive Science assertions of no-free-will.

The Egodeath theory enables EXPERIENCING the complete shift from Possibilism to Eternalism, envisioned with all tools: metaphor, determinism, Relativity, monopossibility, Reformed.

The Egodeath theory is properly interdisciplinary, and experiential, unlike Sam Harris.

— Michael Hoffman, the interdisciplinary EXPERIENTIAL Cognitive Science theorist of ego death
Copyright (C) 2015 Michael S. Hoffman (Egodeath.com). All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 6661 From: egodeath Date: 05/01/2015
Subject: Re: Recognizing all forms of egoic freewill religion
Recognizing all forms of Possibilism religion

There are only two religions, or systems of Transcendent Knowledge: Possibilism, or Eternalism.

Religion (our actual true religious potential) is the experiential shift from:
Possibilism thinking and experiencing
to
Eternalism thinking and experiencing
including the adjustment and revision of our ideas about our personal control power.

Any religion or system of Transcendent Knowledge that is not focused on this specific shift, is irrelevant and nonsense and is not actually religion.

There is only one true religion: the religion of experiential shift from Possibilism to Eternalism, both in our thinking and in our experiencing.

The Egodeath theory is the full development of the one true bona fide religion, the religion of the experiential shift from Possibilism to Eternalism.

All other religions are not actually religion (they are mis-focused), or are incompletely developed.

They are either Possibilism religion, such as PSA and ECT that contaminate the otherwise no-free-will hyper-Calvinism, or they are in sufficiently developed ineffective attempts at Eternalism religion.

Only the Egodeath theory is consistent Eternalism religion, and is experiential, and is fully developed, and is mapped to other domains (interdisciplinary mapping of the new theory/paradigm to the previous attempted theories/paradigms).

— Michael Hoffman, the
experiential, consistent, fully developed, interdisciplinary, Eternalism, STEM cognitive science, effective
theorist of ego death
Copyright (C) 2015 Michael S. Hoffman (Egodeath.com). All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 6662 From: egodeath Date: 05/01/2015
Subject: Re: Recognizing all forms of egoic freewill religion
insufficiently developed ineffective attempts at Eternalism religion, such as Sam Harris on no-free-will.
Group: egodeath Message: 6663 From: egodeath Date: 06/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism

There are 3 interconnected mistakes in the current discussions about Time and Eternalism: 


Current discussions of Time and Eternalism incorrectly focus on:
Presentism, OSC, no myth. 


The Egodeath theory correctly focuses on:
Possibilism, ASC, myth.


A Companion to the Philosophy of Time (Blackwell Companions to Philosophy)
Adrian Bardon (Editor),    Heather Dyke (Editor)
2013
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470658819/
Should contrast Possibilism, not Presentism, to Eternalism. 
Based in OSC ratiocination, not ASC experiential.
No myth.



1.  Presentism?  Focus on Possibilism instead.


 The current discussions focus on “Presentism vs. Eternalism” but should be “Possibilism vs. Eternalism”.  


Our innate view prior to ASC initiation is Possibilism, not Presentism. 


Myth depicts the experiential shift from Possibilism to Eternalism, not from Presentism to Eternalism.  



2.  OSC vs. ASC based


The current discussions about Time and Eternalism are OSC-based, not ASC-based; cogitation/ratiocination based, should be {ASC experiential cognitive phenomenology}-based.   Possibilism is experienced one way, Eternalism in ASC is experienced a different way.


The focus in the Philosophy of  Time books is universally in terms of the contrast between Presentism vs. Eternalism.  The contrast should instead be on Possibilism vs. Eternalism — tree vs. snake.  branching vs. worldline.  This error is because of lack of mapping to myth, and lack of experiential approach.


Discussions on Philosophy of Time are missing out on huge aspects — they are non-experiential driven; they are OSC-based speculation/ ratiocination / cogitation.


Religion and myth are experiential-driven; they are ASC-based experiential reports, cognitive phenomenology, perception; loose-cognitive perceptual phenonemenology.



3. Myth mapping.


The contrast-image of the {tree vs. snake} is the most-ancient contrast image. 


The tree depicts Possibilism (possibility branching), not Presentism.  Presentism is a bad choice for a model — it is purely abstract and cannot be imaged, depicted.  Possibilism is a tree.  Eternalism is a snake in rock.


The snake depicts Eternalism (worldline in block universe; spacetime worm).    


The existing debate in OSC-based Time books is mis-aligned with ASC myth description concerns.


The Experiential Revelation of Eternalism — depicted in religious mythic metaphor.

The Experiential Altered State Revelation of Eternalism.

The Cognitive Phenomenology of Altered State Eternalism.

The Experiential Cognitive Phenomenology of Eternalism.  Understand, experience, feel, sense, perceive, and comprehend in the ASC (loosecog state).


Eternalism doesn’t come from Philosophy of no-free-will, or Linguistics (A-series vs. B-series), or Relativity / Minkowski block time.  Eternalism comes from entheogens, as an experiential revelation.


— Michael Hoffman, the theorist of Egodeath

Group: egodeath Message: 6664 From: egodeath Date: 06/01/2015
Subject: History of Eternalism, Block Time, Block Universe Determinism
1600 BC (500 BC?): The tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden of Eden, containing a snake, and fruit of the tree.

1500 BC (500 BC?): Moses’ healing brass (rigid) snake on a pole (debranched tree).

500 BC Ancient myth; Jason/snake kylix; Typhon, father of all monsters; the king sees snakes at a mixed-wine banquet and is frozen into a rock statue.

300 BC: Staff of Asclepius the Healer (snake on a debranched tree).

150 AD: Transition from no-free-will as terminal point in religious maturation (tree/snake contrast, repudiating tree and affirming snake), to transcending no-free-will (rising above the sphere of the fixed stars).

1079: Anselm: block time.

1530: Reformation. Lucas Cranach’s painting “Eve tempted by the serpent” highlights branching.

1884: Flatland, by Edwin Abbott.

1908: McTaggart’s Linguistics-based block time is published. Minkowski’s 1907 Physics-based block time is presented. A big year for block time.

1988: The Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence (my core theory; my Phase 1 work), presenting limits on personal control power in light of 1908 Minkowski block time and Alan Watts’ personal noncontrol in his 1955 book _The Way of Zen_ (similar to his article “Zen and the Problem of Control”) — as the true definition of ego transcendence, rather than nonduality as the focus of ego transcendence. Nonduality as the focus of ego transcendence is the theory advocated by Ken Wilber and Journal of Transpersonal Psychology; I fought against that theory as the old theory that my paradigm supercedes, having greater explanatory power and scope.

1997: The Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence (my core theory, without myth or history) is summarized at the Principia Cybernetica website on the World Wide Web.

2001: I realize and announce that myth describes no-free-will on the World Wide Web. November 12, 2001. This is the first breakthrough in Phase 2 of developing the Egodeath theory (phase 2 extends the core theory into history and myth). Translating all key myth in terms of {entheogens revealing Eternalism} takes through early 2014.

2006:

I added {mapping to religious mythic metaphor} in my main article 2006 on the World Wide Web.

The Entheogen Theory of Relig and Egodeath (could be titled the “{Metaphor Describes Entheogens Revealing Eternalism} theory…” or the {Entheogen-induced experiential shift from Possibilism to Eternalism} theory of what is revealed in religion in the mystic altered state.

2013:

November 29, 2013: My confirmation of several threads come together: snake in myth (the #1 frequent mytheme) depicts the block universe worldline (heimarmene snake), branching imagery in myth, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil containing a snake.
December 3, 2013: Video lecture and announcement posting on the World Wide Web.

2014:

My core theory and its deciphering of myth and its mapping to myth is confirmed further by solving and deciphering the Staff of Asclepius the Healer.

January 21, 2014, Post-It Note explanation given to Karen the barista, photo has that datetime stamp. Mentioned the Asclepius solution in email to M.F. in early 2014.
Followed by Moses’ healing snake on a pole; a rigid brass snake on a debranched tree.

Healing = experiential shift from Possibilism to Eternalism.

The experiential shift from Possibilism to Eternalism is characterized as healing and is the model for analogy for physical healing, or making whole.

When we experientially shift from Possibilism to Eternalism, we are made whole and healed.

When OSC (tightcog) returns, we experientially return to Possibilism (egoic freewill thinking), but we eventually retain and remember the concepts and experiences of Eternalism from the ASC (loosecog).

Announced all the 2014 breakthroughs on the World Wide Web around December 14, 2014, through January 5, 2015.

2015:

I posted on the Web extensive connections between block time and other fields (Reformed theology, myth, religion, the sphere of the fixed stars in post-150 AD systems including Ptolemaic astral ascent mysticism, Neoplatonism, Gnosticism, Philosophy of free will, Catholic theology).

The true essence of Religion is the experiential shift from OSC-based *Possibilism* thinking and experiencing, to ASC-based *Eternalism* thinking and experiencing.

— Michael Hoffman, the theorist of Egodeath
Group: egodeath Message: 6665 From: egodeath Date: 06/01/2015
Subject: Acronyms and abbreviations
Acronyms:

OSC – ordinary state of consciousness (tight mental construct association; tightcog)
ASC — altered state of consciousness (loose mental construct association; loosecog)

tightcog — the tight cognitive association state, the mind’s default state. Tight mental functioning binding (TMFB) per my 1987 terminology.
loosecog — the loose cognitive association state induced by entheogens. Loose mental functioning binding (LMFB) per my 1987 terminology.

ECT — eternal conscious torment (punishment-Hell, complement of reward-Heaven)
PSA — penal substitutionary atonement (created by Anselm in 1079)

God, in Reformed theology: Ow, my puppet kicked me! Bad puppet! Some nerve, you have! I sentence you to ECT, for rebellion against my power!

Moses’ horns or rays depict awareness of the illusory nature of possibility branching.

— Michael Hoffman, the theorist of Egodeath
Group: egodeath Message: 6666 From: egodeath Date: 06/01/2015
Subject: God created Drug Prohibition and Drug Policy Reform
Prohibitionist Terr*rists (puppets of god)
Dr*g Policy Reformers (puppets of god)

Terr*rist or “peace *fficer”? How to tell the difference?

Before the U.S. can be positioned to criticize Islam, the U.S. must end Prohibition.

Prohibition is nothing but a massive human rights violation, including legalized robbery (forfeiture) and legalized murder (military-style raids).

The pot is calling the kettle black: Prohibition is as bad, destructive, badly motivated, uncivilized, unenlightened, and barbaric as Shariah law.

To hide from himself and cast himself outward into the illusion of multiple control agents, God prohibited psychedelics.

— Michael Hoffman, the theorist of Egodeath
Group: egodeath Message: 6667 From: egodeath Date: 06/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
Companion to the Philosophy of Time (Blackwell Companions to Philosophy)
Adrian Bardon (Editor), Heather Dyke (Editor)
2013
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470658819/
Should contrast Possibilism, not Presentism, to Eternalism.
Based in OSC ratiocination, not ASC experiential.
No myth.
Group: egodeath Message: 6668 From: egodeath Date: 06/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
Against armchair philosophy, against armchair theories of myth, myth and philosophy is something to be experienced intensely, out-of-control, compelling your thinking and feeling and sensation.

The moment you say ‘philosophy’, as in philosophy of time, get a lobotomy: it connotes a modern limited idea: we’re going to time travel and go here and there, and everywhere we go, we are going to limit our thinking to a stiff, preconceived modern notion of what philosophy is.

This is the downfall of the transition to modern rational enlightenment: ‘rationality’ is assumed to be the ordinary state of consciousness, with no concept of experiencing a shift from the possibility world model to the eternity world model.

How good can a book be, in the isolated field of so-called religion, understood in a rational modern enlightenment sense, when it is systematic theology that is all limited to the assumption of the ordinary state of consciousness, with the fatal assumption constraining our thinking right out of the gate, that the Eucharist is merely a symbol.

The Eucharist mixed wine propelling philosophy and propelling myth is a psychedelic inducing the intense experience of our kingly steering power dying on the possibility branching tree, and then the intense experience of living in a reconfigured mental world model as a snake embedded frozen into the space time rock cave.

Modern philosophy of time fails to see the subject as a matter of intense negative fantastic breathtaking awesome experiential, cognitive phenomenology such degraded philosophy fails to see thinking about time as a matter of compelling experiential phenomenology.

We end up with altered-state intense experiencing downshifted into the hardly experiential ordinary state of experiencing time

There is no comparison between experiencing time in the ordinary state versus altered state phenomenology.

This is a serious major reductionism.

Modern philosophy is experientially reductionist.

Modern thinking about myth and religion is serious reductionism, from intense experiencing of the shift from possibility to eternity world model, to merely single-state tight cognitive association conjecture, as if we are inexperienced children speculating about climax, without even really having the concept of climax as an intense experience.

The modern field of philosophy and the modern field of religion strangely both, in practice, make the same mistake of removing or omitting the altered state experiential shift, so they cannot recognize myth.

Myth describes intense experiencing, but philosophy, considered in the modern enlightenment rationalist way, knows nothing of the idea of experiencing philosophy and experiencing religion and experiencing myth.

When you experience myth of block time, eternity world model, death and reconfigured life afterwords, this involves rationality in conjunction, in concert with experiencing.

Modern philosophy, and modern religion, assumes there is only rationality, and not also intense experiencing, an experiential shift in conjunction with rationality.

Heavy acid rock, and mythology in religion, both are intensely negative: you FAIL, possibility thinking DIES, you are R*PED and raptured, OVERPOWERED; you PANIC, it is AWESOME, it is out of the ordinary to experience the WRATH of holding inconsistent ideas about the source of your control power; you experience profound LOSS OF CONTROL.

But modern reductionism limits us to a safe crib, protected from intensity. We are shielded from adult thinking and adult experiencing of intense CATASTROPHE collapse that forcefully compels and FORCES upon us a reconfiguration into a new mental world model.

Real philosophy kicks your *ss to HELL and back and lifts you to heaven. Real philosophy it is an overpowering experience, not feeble speculative armchair philosophy, as in the experientially reductionist so-called “philosophy” of time.

Real philosophy of time kicks your *ss to hell and back, and shakes your foundation into rubble, and forces new thinking through new experiencing.

— Michael Hoffman, phablet voice dictator of what myth, philosophy, and religion are really all about: the ego death theorist
Group: egodeath Message: 6669 From: egodeath Date: 06/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
That was one of my best posts ever.
Group: egodeath Message: 6670 From: egodeath Date: 06/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
Next I will post the posting again with a couple of periods added and a superfluous ‘it’ removed; slightly more polished and stylistically consistent without changing the style.
Group: egodeath Message: 6671 From: egodeath Date: 06/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
Against armchair philosophy, against armchair theories of myth, myth and philosophy is something to be experienced intensely, out-of-control, compelling your thinking and feeling and sensation.

The moment you say ‘philosophy’, as in philosophy of time, get a lobotomy: it connotes a modern limited idea: we’re going to time travel and go here and there, and everywhere we go, we are going to limit our thinking to a stiff, preconceived modern notion of what philosophy is.

This is the downfall of the transition to modern rational enlightenment: ‘rationality’ is assumed to be the ordinary state of consciousness, with no concept of experiencing a shift from the possibility world model to the eternity world model.

How good can a book be, in the isolated field of so-called religion, understood in a rational modern enlightenment sense, when it is systematic theology that is all limited to the assumption of the ordinary state of consciousness, with the fatal assumption constraining our thinking right out of the gate, that the Eucharist is merely a symbol.

The Eucharist mixed wine propelling philosophy and propelling myth is a psychedelic inducing the intense experience of our kingly steering power dying on the possibility branching tree, and then the intense experience of living in a reconfigured mental world model as a snake embedded frozen into the space time rock cave.

Modern philosophy of time fails to see the subject as a matter of intense negative fantastic breathtaking awesome experiential cognitive phenomenology. Such degraded philosophy fails to see thinking about time as a matter of compelling experiential phenomenology.

We end up with altered-state intense experiencing downshifted into the hardly experiential ordinary state of experiencing time.

There is no comparison between experiencing time in the ordinary state versus altered state phenomenology.

This is a serious major reductionism.

Modern philosophy is experientially reductionist.

Modern thinking about myth and religion is serious reductionism, from intense experiencing of the shift from possibility to eternity world model, to merely single-state tight cognitive association conjecture, as if we are inexperienced children speculating about climax, without even really having the concept of climax as an intense experience.

The modern field of philosophy and the modern field of religion strangely both, in practice, make the same mistake of removing or omitting the altered state experiential shift, so they cannot recognize myth.

Myth describes intense experiencing, but philosophy, considered in the modern enlightenment rationalist way, knows nothing of the idea of experiencing philosophy and experiencing religion and experiencing myth.

When you experience myth of block time, eternity world model, death and reconfigured life afterwords, this involves rationality in conjunction, in concert with experiencing.

Modern philosophy, and modern religion, assumes there is only rationality, and not also intense experiencing, an experiential shift in conjunction with rationality.

Heavy acid rock, and mythology in religion, both are intensely negative: you FAIL, possibility thinking DIES, you are R*PED and raptured, OVERPOWERED; you PANIC, it is AWESOME, it is out of the ordinary to experience the WRATH of holding inconsistent ideas about the source of your control power; you experience profound LOSS OF CONTROL.

But modern reductionism limits us to a safe crib, protected from intensity. We are shielded from adult thinking and adult experiencing of intense CATASTROPHE collapse that forcefully compels and FORCES upon us a reconfiguration into a new mental world model.

Real philosophy kicks your *ss to HELL and back and lifts you to heaven. Real philosophy is an overpowering experience, not feeble speculative armchair philosophy, as in the experientially reductionist so-called “philosophy” of time.

Real philosophy of time kicks your *ss to hell and back, and shakes your foundation into rubble, and forces new thinking through new experiencing.

— Michael Hoffman, the ego death theorist; phablet voice dictator of what myth, philosophy, and religion are really all about
Group: egodeath Message: 6672 From: egodeath Date: 06/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
Group: egodeath Message: 6673 From: egodeath Date: 06/01/2015
Subject: Re: History of Eternalism, Block Time, Block Universe Determinism
November 29, 2013 —

My {e equals MC squared}-equivalent breakthrough equation:

tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism

Entheogens induce an experiential shift from Possibilism to Eternalism.

— Michael Hoffman, the theorist of ego death
Group: egodeath Message: 6674 From: egodeath Date: 06/01/2015
Subject: Re: Recognizing all forms of egoic freewill religion
Neoplatonism and Quantum Physics and Gnosticism are popular because they are a semi-covert effort of sneaking back in egoic freewill multipossibility branching, after the assertion of no-free-will in block time in Relativity (Minkowski 1908) and in snake-not-tree banqueting religion up to 150 AD.

‘Spirit’ outside the realm of no-free-will is no use, serving no purpose, unless it is covert egoic freewill power.

‘Spirit’ (pneuma) postulated above fate-ruled soma and psyche, is egoically motivated, introducing confusion to shelter freewill thinking like Jonah’s bush that the worm ate.

We should construct moral ethics in submission (conformity) to Eternalism, not shirk and taint and evade Eternalism by blending back in Possibilism, like mixing egoic punishment-Hell with transcendent no-free-will hyper-Calvinism.

Don’t attempt to “transcend” no-free-will; to attempt that is a euphemism for denying Eternalism and reasserting egoic confused Possibilism thinking. Honor, not evade, Eternalism. The alternative is animal confusion, egoic delusion.

— Michael Hoffman, the theorist of ego death
Group: egodeath Message: 6675 From: egodeath Date: 06/01/2015
Subject: Re: Recognizing all forms of egoic freewill religion
What do Gnosticism, Neoplatonism, Quantum Physics, Integral Theory, freewill theory, and systematic theology all have in common? They are all fantastically complicated, laden with obscure jargon, and have a negative stance toward no-free-will.

Apophatic transrational quantum nonduality is nothing but a shield for freewill assertion.

Like Jonah’s tangled bush that shields him from the harsh light of the sun (before the spacetime worm worldline eats the possibility-branching bush), these sky castles exist for purpose of preserving animal confusion, to provide a place for egoic freewill confusion and incoherence to hide.

The Egodeath theory, the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence, is Eternalism and can be summarized in complete detail in a few pages. Here there is nowhere for egoic freewill confusion to hide.

— Michael Hoffman, the theorist of ego death
Group: egodeath Message: 6676 From: egodeath Date: 06/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
Instead of cogsci moving into “embodied cognition” with great fanfare, cogsci should move into ASC, loosecog, following the Egodeath theory, with great fanfare. Or continue fizzling out while neurobaloney runs off with all your lunch money.

M hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 6677 From: egodeath Date: 07/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
Announcing a sub-theory name:

the Entheogen Eternalism Theory of Myth

the Egodeath theory = the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence + the Entheogen Eternalism Theory of Myth

Acronym notation:
EDT = CTET + EETM

‘myth’ means *religious mythic metaphor*, such as king Jesus, who is like Moses’ healing brass serpent on a pole, sacrificed hung on the tree to cancel our sin to give purification and athanatos and heal to reconnect minds to the source of thoughts and actions.

We elect are made to awaken to the controllership that gives rise to everyone’s thoughts, prohibitionist and reformer alike frozen together in spacetime rock — that same rock that the thief of Transcendent Knowledge, Prometheus, is chained to for eternity, until the end of time.

I have needed a label to refer exclusively to the Phase 2 portion of my theory work, about myth, religion, history, and ahistoricity, as opposed to the Phase 1 core theory.

The Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence is my Phase 1 work, 1985-1998. It is timeless and technical, non-metaphorical, no myth, no history, no metaphor reliance.

The Entheogen Eternalism Theory of Myth is my Phase 2 work, 1999-2014. In 1999 I sought to show that the New Testament affirms the technical core theory, the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence.

In 2001, I discovered and recognized that myth describes not merely visionary plants per Clark Heinrich, but particularly, no-free-will, recast in 2013 as Eternalism — intense *experiential* Eternalism.

Carl Ruck = the entheogen theory of myth, without Eternalism.

I characterize Ruck as the moderate entheogen theory of religion or myth.

The Egodeath theory, specifically the Entheogen Eternalism Theory of Myth, presents the maximal entheogen theory of religion, which inherently leads to Eternalism.

Carl Ruck and the moderate entheogen theory of religion (Mark Hoffman of Entheos journal) lacked awareness and coverage of the intense experiential shift of consciousness specifically from Possibilism to Eternalism that is inherently induced by entheogens.

This is the THE ULTIMATE THEORY: the Egodeath theory; the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence + the Entheogen Eternalism Theory of Myth.

— Michael Hoffman, the theorist of ego death
Group: egodeath Message: 6678 From: egodeath Date: 07/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
Myth describes visionary plants inducing intense experiential shift from Possibilism to Eternalism including block time and no-free-will. That is the Entheogen Eternalism Theory of Myth.

Every word must be redefined into 2 senses, one conformant with block time, Eternalism, static dynamics. Linguistic philosophers have work to do here. In this marble slab, a vein moves through it. The vein approaches the edge. The width of the vein changes as you move toward the edge of the slab. The vein doesn’t change.

— Michael Hoffman, the theorist of ego death
Group: egodeath Message: 6679 From: egodeath Date: 07/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
I made substantial contributions and paradigm revisions to fields in my Phase 2 (1999-2014) work on the Egodeath theory, which can be considered as part of the Entheogen Eternalism Theory of Myth:

Ahistoricity of religious founder figures

History of visionary plants in religion and culture

World myth in religions

History of no-free-will and block time

Chronology revisionism (helps see church fathers as fictional)

Experiential shift from Possibilism to Eternalism described in myth — this fed back into my core theory from Phase 1.


I consider interdisciplinary studies part of my Phase 2 work, even though immediately after my January 1988 core theory breakthrough, I hit the library and built my library in order to communicate the core theory (the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence) to all fields.

Due to my growing knowledge, inherently my Phase 1 work esp. 1985-1987 leading up to the breakthrough was less interdisciplinary than today in 2015. I was reading Ken Wilber in 1986, in order to survey many fields.

All would-be systems of Transcendent Knowledge are covert freewillist projects to the extent they don’t assert and halt at Eternalism and no-free-will:
Neoplatonism
Gnosticism
Mithraism
Integral Theory
Nonduality spirituality and (nondrug) meditation
Shamanism
McKennaism; pop entheogen spirituality
Moderate Calvinism/Reformed
Hyper-Calvinism/Reformed that mixes-in punishment-Hell and penal substitutionary atonement
Quantum Physics
Catholic theology, its moral ethics

The post-150 AD movements to evade no-free-will (see Cosmology and Fate by Lewis) succeeded in burying and obscuring no-free-will by sheer quantity of obscuration.

No-free-will was effectively suppressed and relatively forgotten, compared to the heyday of no-free-will and intense experiential Eternalism during the Hellenistic era 323 BC – 31 BC.

I reject all systems of Transcendent Knowledge as inauthentic and delusion-sustaining, except a few, and I reject these few as experientially and theoretically inadequate:
Relativity correctly halts at no-free-will, block time, Parmenides, Eternalism.
Ramesh Balsekar (Advaita) and
Timothy Freke (New Age) assert no-free-will as Transcendent Knowledge.

There is only one system of Transcendent Knowledge that is authentic, experientially adequate, theoretically adequate, and STEM-appropriate and useful such as for Cognitive Science research: the Egodeath theory, including the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence and the Entheogen Eternalism Theory of Myth.

— Michael Hoffman, the theorist of ego death
Group: egodeath Message: 6680 From: egodeath Date: 07/01/2015
Subject: Re: Might allow hiding your email address
Ken Wilber writes of “the Atman project” — substitution projects attempting immortality. I characterize all systems of Transcendent Knowledge that are averse to no-free-will, as “freewill recovery projects”.

Neoplatonism is a freewill recovery project, against the Hellenistic no-free-will era.

Gnosticism is a freewill recovery project, against the Hellenistic-era no-free-will religion covered by Luther Martin’s book Hellenistic Religions.

Quantum Physics is a freewill recovery project, against Relativity’s block time, Eternalism, Parmenides, and no-free-will.

Catholic theology is a freewill recovery project, against Luther’s assertion of no-free-will.

Moderate Calvinism is a freewill recovery project, against hyper-Calvinism that asserts no-free-will and God as author of sin, evil, rebellion, and confusion.

We seek Transcendent Knowledge in ways that prevent Transcendent Knowledge; we want Transcendent Knowledge but we insist of taking our egoic freewill meta-steering possibility-steering power and our possibility-branching open future with us.

“Give me Transcendent Knowledge, and give me freewill steering power in a possibility branching universe.”

— Michael Hoffman, the theorist of ego death
Group: egodeath Message: 6681 From: egodeath Date: 07/01/2015
Subject: Re: Might allow hiding your email address
Another development in Christian thinking: John MacArthur’s Strange Fire conference and video sermons or talks against Pentacostal enthusiasm. I’m not a video viewer but I saw a video of MacArthur at his (I think) church’s podium talking skeptically at length about literally “transcendent knowledge, special knowledge, revealed, mystic revelation” and suchlike phrases. I felt love and connection for him, much in common. He was speaking my language in a questioning skeptical but open-minded way. I have the answers for his questions and I agree with him that charismatic Christianity is bunk. There is better. Charismatic is inauthentic. Sincerity isn’t so much the issue. He sees people as misguided and I agree. He doesn’t know how we can have authentic enthusiasm, I do. I hope to find and post the video link. I loved hearing him talk my language and I resonate with his sincerity. I don’t care about gay issues, they side-track Transcendent Knowledge. Same with evolution debates — a pox on both houses. I am filled with caring about entheogens and eternalism and intense experiencing combined with rationality. And passion for theory development.

— — Michael Hoffman, the theorist of ego death
Group: egodeath Message: 6682 From: egodeath Date: 07/01/2015
Subject: Re: Recognizing all forms of egoic freewill religion
What people want, in paranormal psychedelic open-future manyworlds quantum nonduality hyperdimensional string theory supernatural Possibilism-explosion.

There is such an enthusiastic gee-whiz popularity in magical thinking. This is a substitute for the fantastic realization of the emphatically *closed* revelation of Eternalism.

There are two ways to Believe in fantastical things. The revelation of Eternalism and the closed future, and of pure metaphoricity in the Bible and myth, is exciting.

People are correct to pursue ecstatic revelation, otherworldly journeys.

To say there’s no fantastic otherworld is wrong. The issue is, in which direction does the true ecstatic revelation lie?

Heavy acid rock converges in a particular, controlled, closed direction “Last night I had a vsion of Eternalism, inability, presetness, unuvoidability.”

I enjoy reading pop folk uncontrolled otherworldly books, but truly, such paranormal supernatural quantum strangeness is a substitute uncontrolled malformed metaphor or analogy for the true fantastic revelation, of Eternalism per the Egodeath theory.

The Bible is revealed as coherent anti-supernatural rational metaphor describing entheogens revealing Eternalism.

I do the miracles Jesus said I would if I Believe in him. I cast out demons, I walk on water, I raise the dead, I heal sickness.

This is all recognized as rational coherent metaphor and Hellenistic deliberate systematic misleading.

The Bible encourages supernaturalist egoic confusion, then reveals nonconfusion, the fantastic ego-depressing closed future that shatters the childish logically uncontrolled world of egoic thus supernatural thinking such as the fantasy of freewill possibility thinking.

— Michael the miracle worker, Believer in Christ
Group: egodeath Message: 6683 From: egodeath Date: 07/01/2015
Subject: Re: Recognizing all forms of egoic freewill religion
Charismatic paranormal supernatural as encouraged in the surface reading of the Bible is a temporary immature substitute for the real bona fide adult revelation of altered state perception of Eternalism. The supernatural paranormal that is extremely popular is a toy plastic imitation steering wheel on the wrong side of the car while the adult is actually doing the driving.

— Michael Hoffman, the theorist of ego death
Group: egodeath Message: 6684 From: egodeath Date: 07/01/2015
Subject: Re: Recognizing all forms of egoic freewill religion
Imitation transcendence versus bona fide transcendent knowledge. The children are entertained by mystic tall tales in the Bible and in quantum physics books and in McKenna books of pop psychedelics, in preparation for the real revelation of inability, closed future Eternalism, and death of childish free will power steering thinking, and the death of the world of multi possibility branching that children live in.

— Michael Hoffman, the theorist of ego death
Group: egodeath Message: 6685 From: egodeath Date: 07/01/2015
Subject: Re: Recognizing all forms of egoic freewill religion
Graham Hancock and McKenna and Ken Wilber and the supernatural are training wheels in preparation for the Egodeath theory. Fantastical pop supernaturalism is deliberate misleading to prop up the most-delicate ego illusion (necessary for God’s projected-outward drama of separate agencies) and preparation for true adult wonders.

M hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 6686 From: egodeath Date: 07/01/2015
Subject: Re: Recognizing all forms of egoic freewill religion
I do the miracles Jesus said I would if I Believe in him. If you Believe the Bible, you Believe me. I cast out demons, I walk on water, I raise the dead, I heal sickness, I forgive sins.

— Michael
Group: egodeath Message: 6687 From: egodeath Date: 07/01/2015
Subject: Re: Recognizing all forms of egoic freewill religion
I make the blind see; I make the paralyzed walk.
Group: egodeath Message: 6688 From: egodeath Date: 07/01/2015
Subject: Re: Recognizing all forms of egoic freewill religion
I make the deaf hear.
Group: egodeath Message: 6689 From: egodeath Date: 07/01/2015
Subject: Re: Recognizing all forms of egoic freewill religion
I calm sea-storms and save from shipwreck. If you Believe in me, you are a Believer in Christ and the prophets, and you are a Believer in the Bible.

This faith is not from yourself, but was given to you by God, put into your mind before the beginning of time, lest anyone boast.

— Michael
Group: egodeath Message: 6690 From: egodeath Date: 07/01/2015
Subject: Re: Recognizing all forms of egoic freewill religion
I pick up vipers without being harmed. You too shall perform all these signs and wonders and more if you are among the Believers.

— Michael
Group: egodeath Message: 6691 From: egodeath Date: 07/01/2015
Subject: My correction of today’s Christianity
I don’t have time to correct each pastor. But Christians need to know where the Egodeath theory stands on the debates.

John MacArthur might be a good point of reference for me to correct and relate the Theory to. I do not mock Christians; I love and respect my brothers in Christ. I love, honor, respect, and look up to John MacArthur, although he is to date a hopeless literalist.

MacArthur is one of my circa 1999 instructors authors in Reformed theology, where I was a little ahead of the popular pack in discovering no-free-will in Christianity, having previously read formerly ignorant authors such as Dave Hunt who subsequently wrote What love is this?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._MacArthur

— Michael Hoffman, the theorist of ego death
Group: egodeath Message: 6692 From: egodeath Date: 08/01/2015
Subject: Re: My correction of today’s Christianity
Contrasting modern Christianity or John MacArthur’s understanding versus the Egodeath theory (the Entheogen Eternalism theory of religious mythic metaphor)

The Egodeath theory explains an understanding of religious mythic metaphor that describes visionary plants revealing Eternalism.

visionary plants = mushroom mixed wine.

Eternalism = block universe, block time, time as a spacelike dimension, and our lives as a snake-shaped worldline that is, in a way, frozen motionless — in a way — into the spacetime block.

 

No one goes to a literal punishment-Hell or reward-Heaven.

The “two races” — those fated and fixed in the spacetime rock … sort out the two kinds of spacetime worm worldlines: any particular person’s worldline either leads from Possibilism to Eternalism, or doesn’t.

The set of the saved (elect) is those worldlines that move from Possibilism to Eternalism.

Those predestined for perdition are those worldlines that stay in the Possibilism mental worldmodel and don’t move to the Eternalism mental worldmodel.

Neither race is “going to heaven” after they die bodily or “going to hell” after they die bodily.

For the race of people who never are turned and never convert to Eternalism:

‘hell’ means (according to their thinking) freewill egoic Arminian punishment-Hell.

‘heaven’ means (according to their thinking) freewill egoic Arminian reward-Heaven.

The race of people who are eventually turned and convert from original sin (the original misconception, Possibilism) to Eternalism, initially think in terms of freewill-agents’ punishment-Hell and reward-Heaven.

But upon turning and converting, this elect race re-conceives ‘hell’ as control-turmoil battling in the mystic altered state induced by mushroom mixed wine, and ‘heaven’ as repudiating freewill thinking, after the illusory freewill demon is cast out.

‘hell’ means conflict loss of control turmoil and sea-storm experience of battling against one’s own source of one’s thoughts, in the mushroom-induced loose cognitive association state, producing a reconfigured mental worldmodel, in an intense experiential shift from Possibilism to Eternalism.

Double predestination is the case. But ‘heaven’ and ‘hell’ shift in meaning.

Everything is predestined and static; motionless motion, like a vein in marble slab can be said to “move through” the slab though it is stationary, in another distinct sense.

There is change, in one sense, not another. See book The End of Time, chapter “Static Dynamics”, by Julian Barbour. “Metastatic dynamic”, is my ~1988 phrase; Julian Barbour has a chapter “Static Dynamics”.

 

The blood of Christ is as psychoactive as ever; this refers to ingesting mixed wine, which is mushroom wine.

The wine pitcher (amphora) contains a mushroom alcohol extraction concentrate.

In the mixing bowl (krater) at a religious mythic party (banquet), water is mixed with a mushroom alcohol extraction concentrate.

‘blood of Christ that saves” refers to entheogen (typically mushroom) extraction; mixed wine, which is intensely psychoactive, the effects of which are described by religious mythic metaphor.

To outsiders, ‘wine’ means alcohol wine diluted with water.

To insiders, ‘wine’ means psychoactive mushroom wine or equivalent.

 

I am the systematic complete STEM Cognitive Science dispensation of the late-modern era, including and incorporating the intense experiential reports of Eternalism from the prophets, the poets of Heavy Acid Rock; find my postings about “lyrics” at Egodeath.com and at the Egodeath Yahoo group. For example, Rush (band), Caress of Steel (album), Fountain of Lamneth (album side), No One at the Bridge (song). Beatles (band), Help! (song). (I am the one who on the World Wide Web first recognized and pointed these out as acid lyrics.)

To make hyper-Calvinism (ie Reformed theology) consistent, remove inherently freewillist punishment-Hell.

In religious mythic metaphor, ‘hell’ actually refers to the mental state of fighting against the mind’s source of thoughts in the loosecog state.

 

Religious founder figures are fictional, not historical individuals: the ahistoricity of Adam, Jesus, Paul, church fathers, Mohammed, and Buddha. The genre of the New Testament is Hellenistic religious fiction, myth, and mystery religion — religious mythic metaphor with deliberate misleading, to conceal and then reveal higher meaning. For example, in John’s gospel mystic tall-tale, Jesus merely swoons on the cross, per blood and water immediately flowing forth. To recognize this type of meaningj-shifting is to “Believe”. Blood and water also alludes to mushroom mixed wine.

 

The Bible is serious metaphor, not serious literalism.

The Bible is metaphorical description, of entheogen Eternalism.

To take the Bible seriously and literally is to be a clueless literalist that Jesus admonishes.

MacArthur and almost everyone in the modern era including Reformed and Charismatics, has been an outsider, failing to understand Jesus’ parabolic meaning. Hellenistic double-meaning is attributed to the Jesus figure.

 

Charismatics aren’t conformant to the New Testament or Hellenistic culture and double-entendre literature including riddling misleading of outsiders.

Modern charismatics lack understanding of entheogens revealing Eternalism; they lack the Egodeath theory; they lack understanding of religious mythic metaphor that describes visionary plants revealing Eternalism.

— Michael Hoffman, the Egodeath theorist.

I am the one who figured out this entire theory, 1985-2015, and published it on the World Wide Web since 1997 and online forums since around 1990.

The entire community rallied to give me lots of rich intellectual resources and encouragement to accomplish the greatest thing I could think of, because I was identified as highly intelligent since 5th grade and beyond. I felt a responsibility to accomplish something truly exceptional, being gifted and having the advantage of many influential adults. And I was driven by need to cure my cross-time control integrity malfunctioning through mental analysis of personal control across time.
Group: egodeath Message: 6693 From: egodeath Date: 08/01/2015
Subject: Re: My correction of today’s Christianity
Video lecture:
What has happened after the ‘strange fire’ conference

http://youtu.be/bYulTGso804

At 34 minutes to 43 minutes, John MacArthur discusses *experiencing* transcendent knowledge, as opposed to remaining in the default ordinary state of consciousness while attempting to read and attempting to study and recognize the meaning in scripture.

Relevant to mushroom mixed wine annointing in the Holy Spirit.

John MacArthur doesn’t respond to the Egodeath theory on how the loose cognitive association state induces the experiential shift from the possibility world model to the eternity world model and comprehending metaphoricity.

There is ample support for the Egodeath theory and the signs and wonders that I perform as Jesus said we would when interpreted correctly according to the Egodeath theory.

Yes everyone else is false prophets in the charismatic literalist movement. But the ego death theory fulfills the claims of scripture that John MacArthur cannot otherwise explain how are fulfilled.

Jesus gives food, bread to people and their eyes are distinctly at that moment opened to understand and recognize the meaning of scripture. John M has no explanation for that. The Egodeath theory perfectly explains it and is the only possible coherent transcendent understanding and recognition of what the metaphors in Scripture must refer to.

— Michael Hoffman, the theorist of ego death
Group: egodeath Message: 6694 From: egodeath Date: 08/01/2015
Subject: Re: My correction of today’s Christianity
I am a type, the Egodeath theory is a type of Reformed Continuationist view. Metaphorical Entheogenic Eternalism Reformed Continuationist, without punishment-hell or reward-heaven but rather, mystical experiential comprehension of these.

Michael
Group: egodeath Message: 6695 From: egodeath Date: 08/01/2015
Subject: Re: My correction of today’s Christianity
Heaven and Hell as entheogen experiences: Robert Graves figured it out in 1957. See my Graves posts.

Michael
Group: egodeath Message: 6696 From: egodeath Date: 08/01/2015
Subject: Re: My correction of today’s Christianity
Hell is unbiblical anyway, eternal conscious torment. The bible is manifestly not for the purpose of telling us how to go to heaven instead of hell after we literally bodily die. Support for hell in the Bible is weaker than a thread; it is shockingly absent.

— Michael Hoffman, the theorist of ego death
Group: egodeath Message: 6698 From: egodeath Date: 08/01/2015
Subject: Re: My correction of today’s Christianity
Hell and heaven and the notion that Christianity is for that purpose is mere tradition, mere Catholic tradition which is heresy and unbiblical.

To read hell into the Bible, the notion that the Bible’s purpose is go to heaven and avoid hell after you die, is to import tradition and heresy into the Bible.

Per Church of Christ (Disciples), stick to only the Bible. Do not import later tradition into the Bible.

Michael the Archangel
Group: egodeath Message: 6699 From: egodeath Date: 09/01/2015
Subject: Re: My correction of today’s Christianity
The biblical gospel good news announcement:

Jesus has brought the just kingdom of God. Jesus brings us into the kingdom of God through having us ingest the mushroom mixed wine in a Christian banquet. Ingesting the wine reclining on bench at table fastens us to the physical tree and transforms our worldmodel to Eternalism and egalitarianism.



The unbiblical Catholic gospel good news announcement:

Jesus died for us so that we can go to heaven instead of hell after we die.



The pagan good news gospel, which the New Testament is a retort and response and rebuttal to:

Jupiter’s Caesar Augustus brings us into the Roman Imperial system through ingesting mushroom mixed wine in the emperor cult banquet and pagan mystery cultic banquets, where reclining on bench at table fastens us to the bench and transforms our worldmodel to Eternalism and hierarchical society.

 

The danger of John MacArthur being Reformed, is that Reformed is a *tradition* and is contaminated still with Catholic tradition. Pop Reformed thinking, even in John Calvin’s own hyper-Calvinism, remains far too Catholic in its assumptions and conceptions of what salvation is about. Reformed thinking remains impure and corrupted with the original sin of freewill thinking and the Possibilism mental worldmodel. Reformed thinking is inconsistent, doesn’t go far enough, retains punishment-thinking, fails to forgive perfectly like Jesus, and therefore falls well short of the consistent, pure Eternalism that drives the Holy Bible (despite the Bible’s urging to do good).



John MacArthur theorizes about who is sanctified. Only those who intellectually, and possibly also experientially, comprehend the Egodeath theory are actually sanctified. Even the “moderate hyper-Calvinists” — “Arminian-still hyper-Calvinists” — mix Catholic traditional freewill punishment-hell into their no-free-will theology; they correctly assert that God is author of confusion, evil, sin, and rebellion, but then in animal-like self-contradictory muddled thinking, they combine that with punishment-hell inherited from the unbiblical Catholic tradition.



Regardless of his impurity-riddled hyper-Calvinism and his conduct of life, MacArthur is not sanctified yet; he is still in his sin, our original confusion, the Possibilism mental worldmodel. MacArthur has not yet been thoroughly turned by the Holy Spirit of clear thinking to the Eternalism mental worldmodel.



The Catholic tradition, inherited like corrupt DNA by the Reformed supposed “scripture only” tradition, holds that Christianity and the Bible are focused on, and are for the purpose of, going to heaven instead of hell after you die. The Reformed *tradition* is not the Bible. Insofar as the Reformed tradition mixes-in egoic punishment-hell and reward-heaven into no-free-will Eternalism and into the Bible, the Reformed tradition is unbiblical. Like the Churches of Christ non-denomination, discard post-Bible traditions of confessionalism, denominations, and Catholic, pagan-influenced tradition. Live in the New Testament era, no later.



Restrict worship practices per the New Testament. Going beyond the New Testament in worship and purpose is unbiblical and heads toward paganism and Popery and selling indulgences to escape hell or purgatory to get into heaven after you die — a project which increases egoic delusion of freewill moral agency steering in a possibility branching tree, which is a deluded and confused conception of personal power and the shape (topology) of the world, building up the animal-like demonic illusion. Post-Bible tradition leads to profiteering, distracting from comprehending revelation of meaning by the Holy Spirit upon receiving from Christ his body and blood, mushrooms and mushroom wine extraction.

 



Christians incorrectly project New Testament (and later) interpretation back onto the Eden tree tale. The theme of “original sin” is not present within the Eden tree narrative. We must sever-away the New Testament, “original sin” reading, in order to read the Eden tree narrative as it stands in itself. See the book _What Really Happened in the Garden of Eden?_



‘Original sin’ actually means the natural initial misunderstanding and shorthand confusion, held by children, animals (and animal-like demons, figuratively speaking), that the world is open-possibility future (Possibilism) and that we have meta-steering power, egoic control power, to steer in kingly fashion into any of the possibility branches. When we cast out demonic confusion, the mind recognizes and repudiates the original sin, adopting Eternalism with a single, preset, pre-existing future, and a snake-shaped invisible railway frozen like a marble statue suspended in the spacetime rock block.

 



Reformed thinkers incorrectly project the Catholic tradition, the Catholic religion of “Christianity is about going to heaven instead of hell after you die”, back onto the Holy Bible. The theme of “Christianity is about going to heaven instead of hell after you die” is not present within the Bible, Old Testament, or New Testament. See N.T. Wright, and Rob Bell (Love Wins). We must sever-away the Catholic, “Christianity is about going to heaven instead of hell after you die” reading, in order to read the Bible, Old Testament, and New Testament narrative as it stands in itself.





The gospel is not instructions on how to go to heaven not hell after death.



What ‘the gospel’ actually is:



Simply Good News: Why the Gospel Is News and What Makes It Good

N. T. Wright

January 6, 2015

http://www.amazon.com/Simply-Good-News-Gospel-Makes/dp/0062334344/

 

The Bible, after later Catholic tradition is deleted, isn’t about how to go to reward-heaven instead of punishment-hell after you bodily die. The Bible is about awakening to the kingship or steering controllership of the Creator of the spacetime block including your entire pre-set frozen stream of thoughts frozen into the past and future. The set of the Elect awaken consciously to the kingship kingdom of God, of Jesus who awakens us and restores us to wholeness (nonduality) and is the avatar of God, displacing such claims by humans such as Caesar Augustus.



The purpose, project, focus, and motivating concern of the Bible is to support deluded childish thinkers doing good prior to initiatory revelation and mental-model turning, and to then reveal for adults the Eternalism mental worldmodel. The Bible in its mature adult revelatory phase is powered by the psychoactive mixed wine, which is the vehicle for the power of the Holy Spirit. The Bible activated by the Holy Spirit in mixed mushroom wine and mushroom bread turns the mind away from the Possibilism mental worldmodel.



The Bible used a strategy of leveraging the altered-state Holy Spirit power revelation toward constructing a just, egalitarian social-political system, against and in rebuttal to Roman Imperial Theology. This strategy is given to the Elect frozen into the spacetime block, even as the Roman Imperial strategy of Caesar Augustus and Jupiter is given to its followers frozen into the spacetime block.



The New Testament is a rebuttal to how the Roman Imperial system used mushroom mixed wine to justify the hierarchical system of society. The New Testament presented a contradictory possibility of using mushroom mixed wine to justify instead an egalitarian system of society. Hierarchy favors the few at the top who hold the most power. Egalitarianism favors the majority at the bottom and middle of the power pyramid, and that is why egalitarian anti-hierarchy Christianity, as a social-support network modelled on the synagogue system was numerically popular and victorious and spread quickly.

 



Mark Driscoll of crashed-and-burned Mar$ Hill Church (it died a few days ago at the end of 2014, due to excess bad judgment), invaded MacArthur’s Strange Fire conference in a stunt to try to promote his latest plagiarized book that used payola to inflate it into phony “bestseller” status. Christianity Today — the publication of SATAN, of pseudo-Christianity for outsiders, who Jesus doesn’t recognize as his — says that this deception, gaming the system, against the efforts of the New York Times bestseller list, is fine and is not unethical. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2015/01/07/eric-metaxas-to-christianity-today-getting-on-best-seller-lists-is-good-stewardship/



— The Michael Channel

_______________________________________

Strange Fire: The Danger of Offending the Holy Spirit with Counterfeit Worship

John MacArthur

November 12, 2013

http://www.amazon.com/Strange-Fire-Offending-Counterfeit-Worship/dp/1400205174/

From the publisher:

“What would God say about those who blatantly misrepresent His Holy Spirit; who exchange true worship for chaotic fits of mindless ecstasy; who replace the biblical gospel with vain illusions of health and wealth; who claim to prophesy in His name yet speak errors; and who sell false hope to desperate people for millions of dollars?



The charismatic movement has always been a breeding-ground for scandal, greed, bad doctrine, and all kinds of spiritual chicanery. As a movement, it is clearly headed the wrong direction. And it is growing at an unprecedented rate.



From the Word of Faith to the New Apostolic Reformation, the Charismatic movement is being consumed by the empty promises of the prosperity gospel. Too many charismatic celebrities promote a “Christianity” without Christ, a Holy Spirit without holiness. And their teaching is having a disastrous influence on a grand scale, as large television networks broadcast their heresies to every part of the world.



In Strange Fire, bestselling author and pastor John MacArthur chronicles the unsavory history behind the modern Charismatic movement. He lays out a chilling case for rejecting its false prophets, speaking out against their errors, showing true reverence to the Holy Spirit, and above all clinging to the Bible as the inerrant, authoritative Word of God and the one true standard by which all truth claims must be tested.”
Group: egodeath Message: 6700 From: egodeath Date: 09/01/2015
Subject: Re: My correction of today’s Christianity
I am going to repost with tighter spacing, identical content.
I am reading in a phablet web interface and optimizing for that.
Group: egodeath Message: 6701 From: egodeath Date: 09/01/2015
Subject: Re: My correction of today’s Christianity
The biblical gospel good news announcement:

Jesus has brought the just kingdom of God. Jesus brings us into the kingdom of God through having us ingest the mushroom mixed wine in a Christian banquet. Ingesting the wine reclining on bench at table fastens us to the physical tree and transforms our worldmodel to Eternalism and egalitarianism.

The unbiblical Catholic gospel good news announcement:

Jesus died for us so that we can go to heaven instead of hell after we die.

The pagan good news gospel, which the New Testament is a retort and response and rebuttal to:

Jupiter’s Caesar Augustus brings us into the Roman Imperial system through ingesting mushroom mixed wine in the emperor cult banquet and pagan mystery cultic banquets, where reclining on bench at table fastens us to the bench and transforms our worldmodel to Eternalism and hierarchical society.

 

The danger of John MacArthur being Reformed, is that Reformed is a *tradition* and is contaminated still with Catholic tradition. Pop Reformed thinking, even in John Calvin’s own hyper-Calvinism, remains far too Catholic in its assumptions and conceptions of what salvation is about. Reformed thinking remains impure and corrupted with the original sin of freewill thinking and the Possibilism mental worldmodel. Reformed thinking is inconsistent, doesn’t go far enough, retains punishment-thinking, fails to forgive perfectly like Jesus, and therefore falls well short of the consistent, pure Eternalism that drives the Holy Bible (despite the Bible’s urging to do good).

John MacArthur theorizes about who is sanctified. Only those who intellectually, and possibly also experientially, comprehend the Egodeath theory are actually sanctified. Even the “moderate hyper-Calvinists” — “Arminian-still hyper-Calvinists” — mix Catholic traditional freewill punishment-hell into their no-free-will theology; they correctly assert that God is author of confusion, evil, sin, and rebellion, but then in animal-like self-contradictory muddled thinking, they combine that with punishment-hell inherited from the unbiblical Catholic tradition.

Regardless of his impurity-riddled hyper-Calvinism and his conduct of life, MacArthur is not sanctified yet; he is still in his sin, our original confusion, the Possibilism mental worldmodel. MacArthur has not yet been thoroughly turned by the Holy Spirit of clear thinking to the Eternalism mental worldmodel.

The Catholic tradition, inherited like corrupt DNA by the Reformed supposed “scripture only” tradition, holds that Christianity and the Bible are focused on, and are for the purpose of, going to heaven instead of hell after you die. The Reformed *tradition* is not the Bible. Insofar as the Reformed tradition mixes-in egoic punishment-hell and reward-heaven into no-free-will Eternalism and into the Bible, the Reformed tradition is unbiblical. Like the Churches of Christ non-denomination, discard post-Bible traditions of confessionalism, denominations, and Catholic, pagan-influenced tradition. Live in the New Testament era, no later.

Restrict worship practices per the New Testament. Going beyond the New Testament in worship and purpose is unbiblical and heads toward paganism and Popery and selling indulgences to escape hell or purgatory to get into heaven after you die — a project which increases egoic delusion of freewill moral agency steering in a possibility branching tree, which is a deluded and confused conception of personal power and the shape (topology) of the world, building up the animal-like demonic illusion. Post-Bible tradition leads to profiteering, distracting from comprehending revelation of meaning by the Holy Spirit upon receiving from Christ his body and blood, mushrooms and mushroom wine extraction.

 

Christians incorrectly project New Testament (and later) interpretation back onto the Eden tree tale. The theme of “original sin” is not present within the Eden tree narrative. We must sever-away the New Testament, “original sin” reading, in order to read the Eden tree narrative as it stands in itself. See the book _What Really Happened in the Garden of Eden?_

‘Original sin’ actually means the natural initial misunderstanding and shorthand confusion, held by children, animals (and animal-like demons, figuratively speaking), that the world is open-possibility future (Possibilism) and that we have meta-steering power, egoic control power, to steer in kingly fashion into any of the possibility branches. When we cast out demonic confusion, the mind recognizes and repudiates the original sin, adopting Eternalism with a single, preset, pre-existing future, and a snake-shaped invisible railway frozen like a marble statue suspended in the spacetime rock block.

 

Reformed thinkers incorrectly project the Catholic tradition, the Catholic religion of “Christianity is about going to heaven instead of hell after you die”, back onto the Holy Bible. The theme of “Christianity is about going to heaven instead of hell after you die” is not present within the Bible, Old Testament, or New Testament. See N.T. Wright, and Rob Bell (Love Wins). We must sever-away the Catholic, “Christianity is about going to heaven instead of hell after you die” reading, in order to read the Bible, Old Testament, and New Testament narrative as it stands in itself.

The gospel is not instructions on how to go to heaven not hell after death.

What ‘the gospel’ actually is:

Simply Good News: Why the Gospel Is News and What Makes It Good

N. T. Wright

January 6, 2015

http://www.amazon.com/Simply-Good-News-Gospel-Makes/dp/0062334344/

 

The Bible, after later Catholic tradition is deleted, isn’t about how to go to reward-heaven instead of punishment-hell after you bodily die. The Bible is about awakening to the kingship or steering controllership of the Creator of the spacetime block including your entire pre-set frozen stream of thoughts frozen into the past and future. The set of the Elect awaken consciously to the kingship kingdom of God, of Jesus who awakens us and restores us to wholeness (nonduality) and is the avatar of God, displacing such claims by humans such as Caesar Augustus.

The purpose, project, focus, and motivating concern of the Bible is to support deluded childish thinkers doing good prior to initiatory revelation and mental-model turning, and to then reveal for adults the Eternalism mental worldmodel. The Bible in its mature adult revelatory phase is powered by the psychoactive mixed wine, which is the vehicle for the power of the Holy Spirit. The Bible activated by the Holy Spirit in mixed mushroom wine and mushroom bread turns the mind away from the Possibilism mental worldmodel.

The Bible used a strategy of leveraging the altered-state Holy Spirit power revelation toward constructing a just, egalitarian social-political system, against and in rebuttal to Roman Imperial Theology. This strategy is given to the Elect frozen into the spacetime block, even as the Roman Imperial strategy of Caesar Augustus and Jupiter is given to its followers frozen into the spacetime block.

The New Testament is a rebuttal to how the Roman Imperial system used mushroom mixed wine to justify the hierarchical system of society. The New Testament presented a contradictory possibility of using mushroom mixed wine to justify instead an egalitarian system of society. Hierarchy favors the few at the top who hold the most power. Egalitarianism favors the majority at the bottom and middle of the power pyramid, and that is why egalitarian anti-hierarchy Christianity, as a social-support network modelled on the synagogue system was numerically popular and victorious and spread quickly.

 

Mark Driscoll of crashed-and-burned Mar$ Hill Church (it died a few days ago at the end of 2014, due to excess bad judgment), invaded MacArthur’s Strange Fire conference in a stunt to try to promote his latest plagiarized book that used payola to inflate it into phony “bestseller” status. Christianity Today — the publication of SATAN, of pseudo-Christianity for outsiders, who Jesus doesn’t recognize as his — says that this deception, gaming the system, against the efforts of the New York Times bestseller list, is fine and is not unethical. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2015/01/07/eric-metaxas-to-christianity-today-getting-on-best-seller-lists-is-good-stewardship/

— The Michael Channel

_____________________________________________________

Strange Fire: The Danger of Offending the Holy Spirit with Counterfeit Worship

John MacArthur

November 12, 2013

http://www.amazon.com/Strange-Fire-Offending-Counterfeit-Worship/dp/1400205174/

From the publisher:

“What would God say about those who blatantly misrepresent His Holy Spirit; who exchange true worship for chaotic fits of mindless ecstasy; who replace the biblical gospel with vain illusions of health and wealth; who claim to prophesy in His name yet speak errors; and who sell false hope to desperate people for millions of dollars?

The charismatic movement has always been a breeding-ground for scandal, greed, bad doctrine, and all kinds of spiritual chicanery. As a movement, it is clearly headed the wrong direction. And it is growing at an unprecedented rate.

From the Word of Faith to the New Apostolic Reformation, the Charismatic movement is being consumed by the empty promises of the prosperity gospel. Too many charismatic celebrities promote a “Christianity” without Christ, a Holy Spirit without holiness. And their teaching is having a disastrous influence on a grand scale, as large television networks broadcast their heresies to every part of the world.

In Strange Fire, bestselling author and pastor John MacArthur chronicles the unsavory history behind the modern Charismatic movement. He lays out a chilling case for rejecting its false prophets, speaking out against their errors, showing true reverence to the Holy Spirit, and above all clinging to the Bible as the inerrant, authoritative Word of God and the one true standard by which all truth claims must be tested.”
Group: egodeath Message: 6702 From: egodeath Date: 09/01/2015
Subject: Re: My correction of today’s Christianity
I suspect that Luther and Calvin and hyper-Calvinists knew that punishment-hell contradicts hyper-Reformed no-free-will and is unBiblical, but they knowingly and strategically retained the freewill Catholic doctrine of “Jesus died so you can go to heaven instead of hell after you die” cynically to control and threaten the masses.

This would explain the unbelievable blatant contradiction that Frank obvious contradiction between transcendent (Eternalism) hyper-Calvinism and egoic (Possibilism) punishment-hell.

— Michael Hoffman, the theorist of ego death
Group: egodeath Message: 6703 From: egodeath Date: 09/01/2015
Subject: Re: My correction of today’s Christianity
When John MacArthur, guilty of Serious Literalism (lower, outsider Crhistianity) states gravely “Souls are at risk, in charismatic heresy!”, he is spouting Catholic heresy! in that his mental association network considers the goal of salvation to be the Catholic doctrine that The gospel is that Jesus died to so that we may go to Heaven instead of hell after we die — that we *deserve* (that’s egoic free will thinking) punishment, eternal conscious torment (ECT) in hell.

Yes souls are at risk of remaining in their sin that is failing to awaken as an adult to Eternalism, failing to be predestined to ingest mushrooms mixed wine which is the forceful calls of turning our attention around repenting and adopting and seeing Eternalism.

Those lost souls are predestined to remain in their delusion of vulnerability to freewill ego-punishment-hell instead of getting their hoped for freewill ego reward in heaven after they bodily die.

My predestined mission assignment is to reveal the gospel to the entire world, that God’s just kingdom has arrived for those who are predestined to be made by Jesus to ingest Jesus’ mushroom mixed-wine at his banquet, and be thereby hung on the illusory multi-possibility tree with him, united and married to him in the body of Christ.

— Michael the Archangel, helpless puppet of God frozen in space time rock unchanging.

I only speak the words that God puts in my mouth.
Group: egodeath Message: 6704 From: egodeath Date: 09/01/2015
Subject: Eternalist Entheogenic Catholicism Throughout Spacetime Rock Block
My Catholic brothers tripping suspended in spacetime rock — all traditions have some saveed regenerated minds turned to look behind them to see:

Metaphoricity

Eternalism

through

loose mental association
through
Entheogens fated

That Entheogenic loose cognitive Eternalism experiential realization and fated revelation IS Happening to Catholics here and there — it is not happening to the hyper Calvinist Protestants very much either. but one must be cautious in

Do not underestimate the power of the force of Entheogen Eternalism spread like spiritual pneumatic annointing seed throughout the frozen spacetime rock.

There is banqueting and Salviafic freezing into 4-D Rock here and there having a filtering affect to gather mystic altered state metaphor themes in myth and religious lore.

Supreme Court, don’t underestimate the extent of Christ’s Holy Entheogens revealing Eternalism (the ultimate religious tradition of revelation) within all traditions.

Recent books proved that all the famous Catholic mystics tripped out on plant drugs, that was the source of their inspiration to tell their devotional mystical tall tales and metaphors while meaning-shifting from the possibility meaning network to the eternity meaning network.

Catholic mystics wrote scientifically about the cognitive science of the experiential shift from Possibilism to Eternalism.

But those books were burned.

My great question is:

To what extent were visionary plants used throughout our own Christian history?

But a better question even than that is:


To what extent have people throughout history used visionary plants and fully undergone and understood an experiential shift from Possibilism vs. Eternalism?


This happens frequently throughout the space time block of human history, in all religions, all systems of transcendent knowledge, all areas, all regions, in all times.

It’s the same as with advanced tricks in electric guitar equipment usage: people repeatedly discover equipment approaches, but these do not become mainstream and they have to be re-discovered in isolated spots. The general population of guitar users remains unaware of them and and practice

You have to continually repeatedly rediscover the techniques yourself; this special knowledge stays below the threshold of propagation that’s needed for it to become common knowledge.

Individuals have the experiential shift from possibility to eternity world model, but this remains fragmented and does not become mainstream much.

There is always an ongoing selection process to preserve the best metaphor description of the visionary plant experiential shift from the possibility to eternity mental model.

Myth has been preserved largely to the extent that myth resonates with the Eternalist Entheogen revelation.


Focusing on loose cognitive processing versus focusing on entheogens

My Phase 1 work deliberately avoided focusing on the chemical and deliberately put all focus on what I would later identify with cognitive science. That is my leading-edge custom-designed innovative framework of thinking in terms of mental construct processing (MCP), loose mental association state, loose mental functioning binding (LMFB).

I developed this conceptual terminology as soon as I switched from prose paragraphs in 1986 to a reset at a particular identifiable point in time around April with the start of a new binder of Pentel P205 pencil on spacious ruled binder sheets with heavy use of acronyms, instead of fornal sentences in a smaller more cramped blank book the blank books.


Binder sheets expansive, versus blank books cramped and ill-prepared for expansive thought

I only intended to fill-in the few pages of the first blank book in order to in January 1986 stop having cross time control integrity malfunction, so that I would plan and do my homework and studies.

I expected to do for far too many things and had poor sense of that my only priority was should be studying.

I thought it would be two weeks at most to figure out ego transcendence Scientifically and rationally and how personal control works and how to not have malfunctioning personal self control power across time, such as planning to study STEM and then recording Rock albums instead and experimenting with electric guitar.

I didn’t have good idea development techniques because I didn’t think I needed them. The project seemed too small to bother.

By March 1987 I was getting good at thinking profoundly and confident in getting insights into thinking immediately every day. Like a giant Titan, my mental power was growing and I needed better pencil and paper technique.

I stepped all the way back and asked what am I trying to accomplish here exactly, and I used acronym notation around April 1987 and my thinking innovation really took off from there, breaking through January 1988, combining personal non-control of Watts with block time of Minkowski, together with my custom tuned terminology and theory of the loose cognitive association state.

Music and now lots of added electric guitar and the college bands musician network continued to take top priority. The deadhead and musician network gave me high inspiration. 1967 was 19 years in the past, a generation, dead but not long dead, and now in 2015 1967 and 1986 seem about one year apart. The 80s were an echo of the 60s.

I was at the peak: 1987, 1988 I did my greatest work, in the second psychedelic UK rave summer of love. Sgt. Pepper finally came out and it was a big deal you could hear the piano bench squeak at the end it was more time travel bandwidth into the recording studio then people ever had on vinyl 1987 was a more solid tunnel, window, tele-phone into 1967 then 1968 was, in terms of fidelity and clarity. Various psychedelic albums were becoming available in perfect ideal (so we thought) format.

Sometimes we wonder why some CDs sounded so murky, because they were random nth generation copies of master tapes. I need caress of steel on remastered cd. My vinyl sounds better than my quick job CD from who knows what generation tape copies. My poor cd does not make me feel time travel into 1975 recording studio.

— Michael Hoffman, the theorist of ego death
Group: egodeath Message: 6705 From: egodeath Date: 09/01/2015
Subject: Turning around Supreme Court’s fallacious assumption
Dear U.S. Supreme Court:

Stop listening to that pop-culture buffoon, Terence McKenna, who falsely cried that the Catholic church never used psychedelic plants equivalent to the Indians’ peyote. McKenna accused the Catholic church of always substituting regular wine for the traditional, authentic, psychoactive mushroom mixed-wine.

His accusation was not the conclusion of any sustained research; it was merely a thoughtless and unsustainable assumption motivated by wanting to slander and delegitimate the Catholic church.

White man has a strong tradition of psychedelic mushrooms in the Bible and throughout Christian practice, since the New Testament was written, and since our ancient Greek heritage with mixed-wine banqueting, and since our Old Testament heritage, all through the entire span of our own, white, European, Mediterranean cultural historical traditional mainstream practice.

You argued that Indians may be permitted to use their peyote (mescaline, a psychedelic) because they have used it for a “long time”, where “long time” is defined as 1900, 100 years prior to your verdict.

You state as a fact the baseless, uncritical, taken-as-granted assumption that white man has no psychedelic tradition in Christianity. This is completely false and the opposite of the truth.

You are using outsider misinterpretation of religion, criticized by Jesus as incomprehension of his meaning, to dictate insider religious practice. Insiders, those who comprehend Jesus’ meaning, cannot let the outsiders dictate based on misunderstanding and spiritual blindness, our authentic religious practices that are the tradition.

The New Testament psychoactive mixed wine banqueting tradition ever since year 30 AD and Augustus Caesar, used for the insiders, psychoactive mushroom concentrate mixed-wine diluted with water, as in ancient Greek banqueting tradition and tradition all throughout our Greco-Roman culture in religious banqueting parties and in all of the mystery religions, including emperor cult per Plecket’s article.

Your argument that Indians may use peyote because of their tradition since 1900, actually implies that white man may use mushrooms and the equivalent in our mainstream Christian practice.

Against your baseless assumption that rests on no research or critical thinking whatsoever, we have a tradition of ingesting visionary plants as the main meaning of the New Testament reception of the Holy Spirit when receiving wine and bread from Christ that opens our eyes to see clearly and no longer be spiritually blind — since long, long before the year 1900.

Whites’ use of visionary plants as the origin and mainstream practice of our religion goes back to the year 30 and ancient Greece of 500 BC, the Old Testament era, and back into the most ancient prehistory, as early as the earliest contrast of tree vs. snake in the garden of Eden, and the Greek garden of the hesperides, in primordial time.

Our Biblical religious mythic metaphor, based on very ancient Near East traditions, describes the use of visionary plants revealing an intense experiential shift from the possibility mental world model (a branching tree) to the eternity mental worldmodel (snake-shaped world lines frozen in block time per Einstein and Minkowski 1908).

Tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism, a most-traditional realization revealed by psychoactive plants since greatest antiquity. Jesus commands and predestines us to ingest his mushroom bread he gives us and to drink his mushroom wine he gives us.

You took the wrong, false side in opposing Jesus’ command and predestined delivery to us of his healing medicine which transforms our mental world model, turns us to look back behind our thinking and see the true source of our thoughts in God’s creation rather than in ourselves as the ultimate authors of our thoughts.

Check your religious assumptions and change your thinking to align with Christ’s delivery of visionary plants through the core and heart of our religion’s tradition.

Our strong White tradition is thoroughly grounded in Greek antiquity as reflected in myth and mystery religion.

Entheogen scholars such as Carl Ruck, Mark Hoffman, Clark Heinrich, Dan Merkur, and I have easily proved and demonstrated that visionary plants such as mushrooms are the thoroughly the backbone of mainstream religious practice in Greek, Roman, Jewish, and Christian history. There is no shortage of evidence for this; there is an abundance, a plethora of evidence including the evidence of depictions and descriptions of visionary plant induced experiencing in myth.

White man’s religious tradition of visionary plants, at the very heart and core of our own traditional practice, goes much further back than the Indians’ practice which you used to justify their peyote use, to the Old Testament.

The Old Testament contains myth which is metaphor describing the use of the visionary plants to reveal the eternity world model and perceiving God’s control of his creation and God’s authorship of all thoughts that are embedded in His Creation.

Your argument in favor of allowing peyote use by Indians logically necessitates that you even more so permit white man to continue his strong inspired tradition that is Christian religion, to use and continue using, as we always have throughout our Protestant Reformed, Catholic, Christian, Jewish, Greek, ancient Roman, and Ancient Near East history, mushroom mixed wine and equivalent visionary plants as the vehicle for the Holy Spirit in our religious traditional practice.

This practice was not eliminated with the beginning of the Catholic church. We have easily more than enough evidence to demonstrate that the practice of visionary plants as the Eucharistic vehicle of the Holy Spirit always continued, in official theology and in folk Catholic practice.

My grandfather’s mother in Oklahoma was American Indian. I grew up within the Jewish temple and in the Churches of Christ, Restorationist movement, which strives in its practice to restrict itself to mimicking and reproducing the New Testament worship practice, and strives to reject all later post-biblical tradition, confessionalism, and denominationalism.

— Michael Hoffman, the interdisciplinary theorist of ego death
Copyright (C) 2015 Michael S. Hoffman (Egodeath.com). All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 6706 From: egodeath Date: 09/01/2015
Subject: Re: Michael
The only possible way to cure religion is by being religion, by standing within the very wellspring of religion, and being much more religious than the religious who are mere outsiders.

Atheists who don’t know the ego death theory are incapable of comprehending religious mythic metaphor meaning and are incapable of killing bad religion and giving birth to bona fide revelation.

This is how the preset block universe, that dictates everyone’s thoughts and actions, is constitutionally structured by the Creator.

— Michael the Archangel
Group: egodeath Message: 6707 From: egodeath Date: 10/01/2015
Subject: Re: Michael
The only sense in which it is possible to get rid of religion, is to displace illegitimate religion and replace it by authentic religion.

It is certainly not possible to eliminate authentic religion, given that the no-free-will rationality which atheists call for is precisely the content and nature of what is revealed in authentic religion, which is a matter of *recognizing* the meaning and the agreement, as when atheist Eastern spirituality advocate and Cognitive Scientist Sam Harris calls for casting out the demon delusion of free will, sacrificing our childish thinking, and purifying our mental model of the world and our power within it.

— Michael Hoffman, the theorist of ego death
Group: egodeath Message: 6708 From: egodeath Date: 10/01/2015
Subject: ‘God’ is a label for the meta-steering control that we don’t have

Talk about ‘God’ is talk about the aspects of the human mind which the sense of local control agency cannot control. God-talk proceeds and comes from talking about these mystically revealed limitations on personal control power across time. When we mystical enlightened people talk about ‘God’, we are more talking about the limits on personal control. ‘God’ refers to what’s left over after you identify how our control is profoundly limited. My thoughts are frozen into the spacetime block and are given to me. I have no control, *in a certain sense*.

 

My thoughts are created and controlled, but I as local agent have partial control. The remainder of control of my thoughts is called “God” or “Controller X”. God is the part of my thought-control power that I as local control agent cannot control but can only passively, like the inherently female psyche, receive. ‘God’ is defined as the higher uncontrollable portion of my control system, of my control over my thoughts. Same with ‘Creator’. I as local controller lack a kind of ‘creation’ power, but my thoughts have been created, so the remainder of creation power, we label as ‘God’.


— Michael Hoffman, the intense experiential Egodeath theorist

Egodeath Yahoo Group – Digest 110: 2011-11-19

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Group: egodeath Message: 5577 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 19/11/2011
Subject: Caduceus: mycopercep shows sep ctrl-lev relations/harmony
Group: egodeath Message: 5578 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/11/2011
Subject: Axiom-driven extreme simplification ultra-powerful
Group: egodeath Message: 5579 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/11/2011
Subject: Re: Axiom-driven extreme simplification ultra-powerful
Group: egodeath Message: 5580 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/11/2011
Subject: Rod/spear/axis/pole = demo of hi lev’s ctrl of lo lev ctrlr
Group: egodeath Message: 5581 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/11/2011
Subject: Re: Caduceus: mycopercep shows sep ctrl-lev relations/harmony
Group: egodeath Message: 5582 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/11/2011
Subject: Re: Caduceus: mycopercep shows sep ctrl-lev relations/harmony
Group: egodeath Message: 5583 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/11/2011
Subject: Re: Rod/spear/axis/pole = demo of hi lev’s ctrl of lo lev ctrlr
Group: egodeath Message: 5584 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/11/2011
Subject: JHVH as infinite hierarchical regress
Group: egodeath Message: 5585 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/11/2011
Subject: Re: Rod/spear/axis/pole = demo of hi lev’s ctrl of lo lev ctrlr
Group: egodeath Message: 5586 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/11/2011
Subject: Control-levels concord pact applied to nations/war
Group: egodeath Message: 5587 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/11/2011
Subject: Hermaphrodite, sun&moon-headed body
Group: egodeath Message: 5588 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/11/2011
Subject: The Hammer of Interpretation
Group: egodeath Message: 5589 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/11/2011
Subject: Re: The Hammer of Interpretation
Group: egodeath Message: 5590 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/11/2011
Subject: Maximally condensed summary of Transcendent Knowledge
Group: egodeath Message: 5591 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 21/11/2011
Subject: Re: Maximally condensed summary of Transcendent Knowledge
Group: egodeath Message: 5592 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 21/11/2011
Subject: Proof by trial test demo of Noncontrol/Fatedness
Group: egodeath Message: 5593 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 21/11/2011
Subject: Re: Proof by trial test demo of Noncontrol/Fatedness
Group: egodeath Message: 5594 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 21/11/2011
Subject: Re: Maximally condensed summary of Transcendent Knowledge
Group: egodeath Message: 5595 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 21/11/2011
Subject: Split ctrl-model to 2 parts, -delu., perceive/map T’t
Group: egodeath Message: 5596 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 21/11/2011
Subject: Re: Maximally condensed summary of Transcendent Knowledge
Group: egodeath Message: 5597 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 21/11/2011
Subject: Wheat vs. Chaff: m-model of thot-src vs junk part of ego
Group: egodeath Message: 5598 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 21/11/2011
Subject: Two accompanying up/down torchbearers, thieves, etc
Group: egodeath Message: 5599 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 21/11/2011
Subject: Re: Two accompanying up/down torchbearers, thieves, etc
Group: egodeath Message: 5600 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 21/11/2011
Subject: Re: Two accompanying up/down torchbearers, thieves, etc
Group: egodeath Message: 5601 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 21/11/2011
Subject: Achilles’ Heel = unctrlble source of ctrl-thoughts/ctrl-power
Group: egodeath Message: 5602 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 21/11/2011
Subject: Re: Maximally condensed summary of Transcendent Knowledge
Group: egodeath Message: 5603 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 21/11/2011
Subject: Re: Maximally condensed summary of Transcendent Knowledge
Group: egodeath Message: 5604 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 21/11/2011
Subject: Re: Maximally condensed summary of Transcendent Knowledge
Group: egodeath Message: 5605 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 21/11/2011
Subject: Re: Maximally condensed summary of Transcendent Knowledge
Group: egodeath Message: 5606 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 21/11/2011
Subject: Snake/krater/panther under bull/chariot,
Group: egodeath Message: 5607 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 21/11/2011
Subject: Re: Snake/krater/panther under bull/chariot,
Group: egodeath Message: 5608 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 21/11/2011
Subject: Re: Snake/krater/panther under bull/chariot,
Group: egodeath Message: 5609 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 22/11/2011
Subject: Pagan relig died bc Fate was rejected
Group: egodeath Message: 5610 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 22/11/2011
Subject: One-foot limping king lost sandal
Group: egodeath Message: 5611 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 22/11/2011
Subject: Re: One-foot limping king lost sandal
Group: egodeath Message: 5612 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 22/11/2011
Subject: Psyche = penetrated receptacle female thought-receiver
Group: egodeath Message: 5613 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 23/11/2011
Subject: Amanita = King of Enth metaph; psil = superior fx
Group: egodeath Message: 5614 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 23/11/2011
Subject: ‘entheogens’ = noncontrol-revealers, anti-cyberdelics
Group: egodeath Message: 5615 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 23/11/2011
Subject: thoughtsource/thotreceiver before/during/after initiation
Group: egodeath Message: 5616 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 23/11/2011
Subject: Refactoring the Core theory per mythic metaphors
Group: egodeath Message: 5617 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 23/11/2011
Subject: Prometheus stole firre, chained, eagle eats liver forever
Group: egodeath Message: 5618 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 23/11/2011
Subject: Myth as a riddling Sphinx
Group: egodeath Message: 5619 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 23/11/2011
Subject: Re: Graves-Wasson enth theory 1960, Hall 1925, S. 1845
Group: egodeath Message: 5620 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 23/11/2011
Subject: The Son of Man, given/destined for sacrifice so eter life/forgv sins
Group: egodeath Message: 5621 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 23/11/2011
Subject: fountain in a cave
Group: egodeath Message: 5622 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 23/11/2011
Subject: Mythic metaphor code fully cracked
Group: egodeath Message: 5623 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 23/11/2011
Subject: thread of computer instructions/commands
Group: egodeath Message: 5624 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 23/11/2011
Subject: misc.
Group: egodeath Message: 5625 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 23/11/2011
Subject: Re: Egodeath indep revel’n of Modern era, Engineering
Group: egodeath Message: 5626 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 23/11/2011
Subject: Re: Two accompanying up/down torchbearers, thieves, etc



Group: egodeath Message: 5577 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 19/11/2011
Subject: Caduceus: mycopercep shows sep ctrl-lev relations/harmony
The Caduceus means better perception to see control-level relationships and establish harmonious peaceful accord between control levels rather than fearing the higher, hidden, uncontrollable control level that makes you have your control-thoughts. The caduceus is a testament, a contract of accord from the gods to man, or between the two control levels that steer the course of our lives.

The healing, mentally harmonious message that is forced upon your thoughts by the gods who pull your neural puppet strings is: your eye of awareness is lifted up on a pole and with wings to perceive that there are two separated levels of control in your mind, that need to work together in harmony: a lower, subservient controller-snake and a higher control-level snake, both control-levels perceiving each other and standing in a balanced, harmonious, healthy, calm relationship.

Ouroboros *actually* and primarily means what? First generally, religious metaphor, by definition, must mean:
1: cybernetic relationships/dynamics
2: heimarmene aspects
3: loose cognition and increased perception

Egoic and transcendent levels of control are put in harmony; balance cybercontrol systems or cybercontrol levels as in the caduceus message from the gods to initiates.

Not a vague disembodied flying eye, but rather, specifically, the eye in mythic art means “the ability to now perceive cybercontrol relationships”. flame = increased perception; new ability to perceive something that couldn’t be perceived before. A flame (per HKN version of caduceus) over 2 snakes enables perceiving 2 snakes. Most generally, snake = cybercontrol relationships. So snake on caduceus, on pole, ouroboros, means “knowledge of cybercontrol principles/relationships”; or “cybercontrol knowledge/wisdom”. The serpent means cybercontrol perception and knowledge.

Michael pinning the serpent means cybercontrol knowledge, or understanding of cybercontrol; cybercontrol understanding.

Moses’ snake on pole means render visible, display, cybernetic relationships and heimarmene. As in “remember this, always see this”; always keep this in mind; remember this: cybernetics in light of the presetness of your heimarmene-worldline. “Understand cybercontrol” — which includes the cybercontrol aspects of heimarmene. “comprehend cybercontrol”; “apprehend cybercontrol”. See and understand cybercontrol dynamics and relationships.

The “knob” on the caduceus is the elevated eyeball of increased awareness and perception, raised up to perceive the cybernetic levels relationship.


The 2 different control-level snakes that propel us are in a harmonious relationship, resulting in:
o peace
o integration
o a fully functional relationship
o non-dysfunctional control
o properly functioning control
o right control
o proper control
o correct control
o cybercorrectness


Per the correct application of the Procrustean method of forced interpretation, to produce the One Really True interpretation: the Caduceus *must* mean perceiving cybernetic noncontrol and heimarmene via the entheogenic state. How can the caduceus symbol be forced to mean perceiving cybernetic noncontrol and heimarmene via the entheogenic state?

The serpent in myth means one thing towering above all other meanings: heimarmene; the shape of the worldline in the simplest possible spacetime block
world-model, and heimarmene in relation to cybernetic non-control, or better, revealing of two levels of control, or levels of steering, with one level of control (steering) completely forcefully driving or steering the other level of control.

The two distinctly different snakes perceive each other on the caduceus: one is the lone snake at the egoic control level, and the other is the infinite-regress state. The one snake is a cybernetic control gear driven by the other.

The caduceus, two snakes in various images (the low-high pair of anythings: two torchbearers, two rebel bandits on crosses, two sons of Laokoon), represents an understanding of the driven-gear cybernetic relationship.

The caduceus — the specific message from the gods, or among the gods and fates and mortals and heroes — carried by The Trickster! — represents an understanding of all of these types of relationships:

1. The logically, cybernetically problematic nature of autonomous personal control.

2. The wrath and panic and terrifying, dread loss-of-control instability that results when egoic thinking first confronts the normally imperceptible, uncontrollable source of its control-thoughts.

3. The driven/driver control-relationship.


One humanoid escapee
One android on the run
Seeking freedom beneath a lonely desert sun
Trying to change its program
Trying to change the mode
Images conflicting into data overload

1-0-0-1-0-0-1
S.O.S.
1-0-0-1-0-0-1
In distress
1-0-0-1-0-0

Memory banks unloading
Bytes break into bits
Unit One’s in trouble and it’s scared out of its wits
Guidance systems break down
A struggle to exist — to resist
A pulse of dying power in a clenching plastic fist

It replays each of the days
A hundred years of routines
Bows its head and prays
To the mother of all machines


— The Electric Professor


Rod = staff = spear to pierce liver to cause “inevitable death” ie “death by heimarmene” = egodeath by perceiving heimarmene/egoic noncontrol. Thus long straight object = egodeath by perceiving heimarmene.

To say and feel and perceive — from the elevated-on-a-pole perspective, the caught-up tangled in a tree perspective — that I can’t change or make my thoughts in the present moment, is to say that I have no power (of any substantiality) over my life, in relation to the block universe. I appear to have power, but from a higher perspective, I’m a driven gear embedded in changeless 4D spacetime.

What’s so offensive about heimarmene? The presetness of my control-thoughts is what is poisonously offensive, a fatal snake-bite to my egoic soul. Presetness
= noncontrol at the egoic level. If my control-thoughts are preset, that exactly means that my egoic control power is (in a profound sense) an empty illusion.

I have power over my thoughts in one sense, but in a profound sense I have no power at all over my thoughts, I don’t exist at all to have even slight power
over my thoughts, to originate, create, or change my thoughts.


Ken Wilber’s “fear of death” and “death grins in” in his early books is nonsense, completely off-track, totally clueless and irrelevant: he fails to recognize the death-panic of ego upon seeing that it cannot control the separate source of its control-thoughts. Out of all the thousands of ideas smooshed together in the systems he tries to integrate, this particular idea towers above the rest, and any attempted explanation of religion needs to put appropriate emphasis on this particular idea — which Integral Theory does not.


The perception of two centers of control represented in the caduceus disturbs egoic control stability and restores it; poisons and fatally wounds ego to death by spearing the liver, and heals and calms and restores stability of personal cybernetic control. The caduceus concretely represents specifically *these* ideas, all of them at once.

Snake is worldline-path shaped, indicating understanding of the presetness and fatedness of your entire life past, present, future, floating in the stone-like changeless
spacetime block universe. Heimarmene controls you, therefore the egoic local visible you as a control-idea actually has non-control; the kuberne tes (steering agent) does *not* have primary control.

How can the dancing pair of snakes be forced by Procrustes to mean “perceiving cybernetic noncontrol and heimarmene via the entheogenic state”? The elevated-perspective loosecog state reveals, makes visible and illuminated, that there are 2 centers of control — a higher driving and a lower subservient driven level — not a single autonomous locus of control.

The twin snakes are the 2 levels of control in us self-controlling agents, as driving-gear and driven-gear.

Before cybernetic cognition is illuminated by mushrooms to reveal it, there’s the initial appearance of egoic autonomy. During increased perception, control is seen as a lower driven level (egoic control area) and a higher driving level (thoughts lying preset in the transcendent spacetime block of heimarmene). That seeing breaks the illusion of egoic autonomous control, and reveals egoic thinking as merely driven, thus killing its appearance of wielding power as a power source, or source of cybernetic steering-ability.

Egoic thinking is not an actual *source* (in a strong sense) of cybernetic steering power, but is merely a pre-set *conduit* of steering power, with all control-thoughts given and set by the block universe as the real source and determiner of what is being thought in the ego-shaped thinking (or mind) at all time-slices.

The caduceus represents loosecog, hidden transcendent control, and apparent egoic control. Awareness is neither egoic cybercontrol functioning nor the transcendent source of control-thoughts. Dove = Eagle = wings = Holy Spirit = ecstasy = increased perception, increased visibility, to perceive that egoic control doesn’t control the source of its control-thoughts.


God = Jupiter = one snake = the transcendent source of control-thoughts.

Jesus = Caesar = other snake = egoic cybercontrol functioning.

Dove = Eagle = elevated eye = increased perception, increased visibility, to perceive that egoic control doesn’t control the source of its control-thoughts, and = harmonious relation and unity, marriage, of the two domains of control that steer our minds and lives.


Hermes is the messenger. A messenger carries a message. Hermes carries a caduceus. The caduceus is the message carried from the gods to mortals. What is the message? Read the message. The components of the message: rod with knob atop; 2 snakes facing each other, interwoven/interlinked; wings.

The message of the caduceus reads: “In the ecstatic loosecog state with awareness-perspective lifted up (raised, heightened, elevated, increased), perceive the heimarmene snake as one locus of control, and egoic personal control as the other locus of control, and these two meshing levels perceive each other; the snakes look at each other in harmonious accord and mutual dependence.

After initiation, egoic control relies on the transcendent source of control-thoughts, and always the transcendent source of control thoughts relies on and utilizes egoic control-shaped thinking.

Perceiving heimarmene acting as the uncontrollable source of your control-thoughts kills and harms your former self, but then the egoic self is restored to stability and healed and cured by standing in conscious awareness of the relationship between the two levels or locii of control.


We shall call you Cygnus
The god of Balance you shall be


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5578 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/11/2011
Subject: Axiom-driven extreme simplification ultra-powerful
Math axioms are functionally equivalent to vehement dogma and creedal confessionalism. Logical propositions, propositional logic, rules, have a severe strictness to them. This strictness is accustomed in Engineering, so that the Engineer isn’t even conscious of giving assent voluntarily into the strict contract struck with logic; chaining himself as a slave to the contract of logic.

This is the power of Analytic Philosophy and Propositional Logic. My main article is written in such axiom-driven style but can be taken to a more rigorous, simplifying, mathematical extreme of absolutism and extremist simplification.


Axiom 1: Cybernetics —
Dogmatic doctrinaire confessional creed fundamentalist axiom absolutist dictate of the Transcendent Truth about Cybernetics:

Before perception is increased per Axiom 3, personal cybernetic control is mentally structured or modelled as a single, autonomous center of control. After perception is increased, personal cybernetic control is mentally structured or modelled as two distinct levels of control, the higher one a driver of the other, driven one. All control-thoughts are forced onto the lower level by the higher level as the normally hidden, uncontrollable source of thoughts.

(All other ideas, variants, or qualifications are anathema; are counter-axiomatic and are a priori not permitted of consideration.)


Axiom 2: Heimarmene —
Dogmatic doctrinaire confessional creed fundamentalist axiom absolutist dictate of the Transcendent Truth about Heimarmene:

The future is preset and preexisting and single. Time is a spacelike dimension. Your worldline preexists and floats changelessly in the spacetime block.

(All other ideas, variants, or qualifications are anathema; are counter-axiomatic and are a priori not permitted of consideration.)


Axiom 3: Dissociation —
Dogmatic doctrinaire confessional creed fundamentalist axiom absolutist dictate of the Transcendent Truth about Dissociation:

Religion is the use of ground psilocybin mushrooms in Cabernet Sauvignon mixed with water in a ratio such that the peak loosecog level one kylix (cup) is equivalent to the peak loosecog level from 100 ug of lysergi saure di-ethyl-amide.

These mushrooms cause loose mental functioning binding, which increases perception of personal control cybernetic dynamics.

(All other ideas, variants, or qualifications are anathema; are counter-axiomatic and are a priori not permitted of consideration.)


Axiom 4: Metaphor —
Dogmatic doctrinaire confessional creed fundamentalist axiom absolutist dictate of the Transcendent Truth about Metaphor:

Religious myth is metaphorical description of taking mushrooms to increase perception of personal control cybernetics dynamics per Axiom 1 and heimarmene per Axiom 2.

(All other ideas, variants, or qualifications are anathema; are counter-axiomatic and are a priori not permitted of consideration.)


Axiom 5: Ahistoricity —
Dogmatic doctrinaire confessional creed fundamentalist axiom absolutist dictate of the Transcendent Truth about Ahistoricity:

Jesus, Paul, and all the Ancient Church Fathers are ahistorical. Ancient Christianity didn’t exist in Classical Antiquity and was later Photoshopped into the materials of Antiquity by monastics in 1525. There were only 350 years between 476 and 1525, not 1050 years; the Middle Ages were 700 years shorter than the Benedictines’ chronology asserted. 700 is aka 1400. 825 is aka 1525. Per Edwin Johnson.

(All other ideas, variants, or qualifications are anathema; are counter-axiomatic and are a priori not permitted of consideration.)


Axiom 6: Politics —
Dogmatic doctrinaire confessional creed fundamentalist axiom absolutist dictate of the Transcendent Truth about Politics:

The Enlightenment constituted by Axioms 1, 2, and 3 is contended between aristocratic hierarchicalists and egalitarian democrats, such as kings vs. the demos in Athens, and Roman Imperial social-political hierarchy vs. egalitarian house-church Christianity, using and leveraging either of the two possible interpretations of how Enlightenment purportedly advocates one of the two social-political configurations.

(All other ideas, variants, or qualifications are anathema; are counter-axiomatic and are a priori not permitted of consideration.)


These doctrines require absolute affirmation and commitment. No other thoughts are permitted. Any deviation from these infinitely narrow and maximally simple principles is accursed, destined for destruction, gets the guillotine, has negative infinite legitimation, and is anathema.

These axioms forcefully dictate and necessitate each other. To affirm any one is to affirm them all. Each logically implies the others.

You must marry these with full exclusive faithful commitment to them, only; to even look at another position or complexification of any of these fundamental axioms of mandatory assent is full corruption and total confusion, demonic insanity, insurrection, and a hatred-driven attack on mankind. Complete confessional Belief in this creed is demanded. The result of pure total assent to these maximally simple absolute axioms is an ultimate cornucopia, jackpot, and breakthrough into all Wisdom of the Ages.

Axiomatically committing to the simplest possible Theory of religious revelation produces the fastest, most powerful, most coherent, greatest possible 1) breadth of explanatory power, 2) conceptual coherence, and 3) ability to map to other theories, per Paul Thagard’s metatheory in Conceptual Revolutions.

The doorway to the core engine of mystery religion and wisdom traditions must be the soonest, simplest, most basic, most comprehensible model. The top priority by far is to build a complete-closure theory that is the very simplest possible theory; by definition, the lightning path is the shortest possible electrical distance between the earth and sky. The weakest link in the chain inherently breaks first.

This is an Achilles’ heel effect: what’s the weakest, most vulnerable point in your thinking? That is the measure of the most fundamental, important, important, profound, common, relevant, powerful, elementary, gateway-like Theory. That is the most desirable theory: the theory which cannot be matched for simplicity by any other theory.

The best, most effective theory, leading to the fastest, easiest, and perfectly true egodeath self-control seizure revelation and the most harmonious restoration of reconfigured control-configuration, is by definition the simplest theory. The very simplest possible theory is the very best possible theory, by any and all measures. There exists only one theory that is worth anything at all, it is worth everything, and it is whichever theory is simplest.

The utterly simplest possible theory deserves 100% of our allegiance, commitment, and faithfulness; all other theories deserve none, are anathema, and are accursed — destined for destruction.


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5579 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/11/2011
Subject: Re: Axiom-driven extreme simplification ultra-powerful
Axioms of the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence making it the simplest and most powerful theory of religious revelation:


The Cybernetics Axiom: Before perception is increased, personal cybernetic control is mentally structured or modelled as a single, autonomous center of control. After perception is increased, personal cybernetic control is mentally structured or modelled as two distinct levels of control, the higher one a driver of the other, driven one. All control-thoughts are forced onto the lower level by the higher level as the normally hidden, uncontrollable source of thoughts.

The Heimarmene Axiom: The future is preset and preexisting and single. Time is a spacelike dimension. Your worldline preexists and floats changelessly in the spacetime block.

The Dissociation Axiom: Religion is the use of psilocybin mushrooms in red wine mixed with water so the loosecog from 1 cup = 100ug LSD. Mushrooms cause loose mental functioning binding, which increases perception of personal control cybernetic dynamics and heimarmene.

The Metaphor Axiom: Religious myth is metaphorical description of taking mushrooms to increase perception of personal control cybernetics dynamics and heimarmene.

The Ahistoricity Axiom: Jesus, Paul, and all the Ancient Church Fathers are ahistorical. Ancient Christianity didn’t exist in Classical Antiquity and was later Photoshopped into the materials of Antiquity by monastics in 1525. There were only 350 years between 476 and 1525, not 1050 years; the Middle Ages were 700 years shorter than the Benedictines’ chronology asserted. 700 is aka 1400. 825 is aka 1525.

The Politics Axiom: Enlightenment is contended between aristocratic hierarchicalists and egalitarian democrats, such as kings vs. the demos in Athens, and Roman Imperial social-political hierarchy vs. egalitarian house-church Christianity, using and leveraging either of the two possible interpretations of how Enlightenment purportedly advocates one of the two social-political configurations.


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5580 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/11/2011
Subject: Rod/spear/axis/pole = demo of hi lev’s ctrl of lo lev ctrlr
Rod/spear/axis/pole = demo of hi lev’s ctrl of lo lev ctrlr

The proving that kills the egoic claim to autonomy, is the vertical line. For example, the spine of the caduceus = testing, demonstration, and determination of control-power directionality, which is concluded to flow one-directionally from the transcendent center of control down to the egoic center of control.

wand
rod
pole
thyrsus (fennel stalk) of Dionysus & Maenads
scepter
staff
spear
central tree trunk
world-axis
spine of caduceus

Don’t make the common mistake of vaguely writing “power”; rather, specify insightfully “cybersteering control-power”.

The steersman or ruler has his hand on a rudder-handle, a pole of control and steering (equivalent), steering the ship of state, controlling the lower control-centers that are subject to his control. The spear of heimarmene pierces the liver and the egoic agent so pierced is destined for death by destiny, the ego’s power against the transcendent has been tested and disproved.

When on mushrooms exploring the revealed two centers of personal cybernetics control dynamics, the mind tests whether the local center of control can control the source of control-thoughts. It can’t. The testing, the demonstration, is a one-way power relationship. The higher center of control controls the lower center of control. The lower center of control cannot control the higher center of control.

Envision the rod, staff, bar, spine of the caduceus, or vertical beam of the Cross as a downward arrow: power flows down from the uncontrollable source of thoughts (including control-thoughts) to the local, egoic, reactive, moved, lower center of control power.

Moses’ rod and snake: the rod is the terrifying testing of control-power, and the snake is one’s preset, changeless worldline floating embedded helplessly in the spacetime block.

Dare to look at and directly perceive the uncontrollable source of your control-thoughts when in the peak window of increased perception — and face The Test of power-trust relationship between your lower, egoic, local and higher, transcendent, remote centers of personal cybernetic control.

The Test kills egoic delusion, the claim of simple single-center autonomy of personal control — if that egoic self-concept hasn’t been Put To The Test already: the lower center of cybersteering control power wrestling against the higher center of cybersteering control power. The higher center is always inevitably predestined to win this contest which is no contest for the higher is the very source of the control-thoughts of the lower level controller.

How can the woman win the wrestling, when the very source of her power and decisions in the battle are given to her by the Man? Like some rite in Mithraic initiation, he has her by the b*lls; that is, he has full control of her mind’s source of control-thoughts. He is even the very source of her desire to fight and rebel against him, testing him. Control-power flows strictly in one direction: from higher to lower.

Thus in a Control Systems diagram, the upper box is the God (Transcendent) control center, and the lower box is the Jesus (Egoic) control center, and the direction of control flows strictly from God to Jesus: thus the Dove of Harmonious Peaceful Accord flies downward from God to Jesus, serving as the arrowhead on the directional arrow from the Transcendent control-center down to the Egoic control-center.

The Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence is superior to all other theories of religion in many ways. It can be scientifically tested by the community of testers/observers. Drink watered-down wine. With increased perception, observe the source of your thoughts. Try to control the source of your thoughts.

Try to prevent the thought from occurring, “Oh no, S.O.S., a thought is possibly about to arise of me losing control and thinking that I’ve been timelessly predestined to lose control, and there’s nothing I can do to stop that.” Try fighting against your own source of thoughts, and experience Wrath and control seizure/instability.

Then try putting your full trust in the source of your thoughts as if you are a vulnerable weak woman who is totally at the mercy of her husband and who always has been in that situation; pray to the higher level source of your thoughts to love you and be loved and trusted by you; and repudiate your claim to be an autonomous independent center of control.

Confirm that peace, harmony, and self-accord among your lower and higher control centers is reached. Experience the sacred marriage and imperishable stable state with transformed mental model of yourself as control center, now seen as a dancing relationship between two distinct control levels, the lower subservient to and dependent on, and helplessly at the mercy of, the uncontrollable higher center of control.

The vertical line is the testing and proving that there is a one-way power relationship from higher to lower, given that the higher is the source of the control-thoughts of the lower. Thus:

line = “my transcendent center of control has full power over my egoic center of control”

Rosicrucian Invisible College shows a high-to-low control-directionality line from JHVH down to the stably anchored philosopher in the lower right. Picture a dove as arrowhead flying downward along that line.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath/photos/album/516071947/pic/5907724/view?picmode=large
Wings are used as complementary up and down arrowheads on 4 lines 2/3 up in the picture.

Icon showing Dove flying downward from God to speared-liver Jesus, destined for destruction, destined to die of death by destiny during the control-power levels testing. When Jesus tests whether he can control God, whether he can control the source of his own control-thoughts, he finds he cannot, and his initial claim to independent autonomous control-power dies.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath/photos/album/516071947/pic/2068056640/view?picmode=original



God / Jupiter / Transcendent Control Center
|
|
|
|
V Dove / Eagle flying down
Jesus / Caesar / Egoic Control Center
|
|
|
|
V
marionette
|
|
|
|
V
object manipulated by marionette


Now I find peace of mind
Finally found a way of thinking
Tried the rest found the best
Stormy day won’t find me sinking

I can’t conceal it like I know I did before
I got to tell you now the ship is ready
Waiting on the shore/shelf.

Dare to look face the test on the eve
When you set sailing
What you’ve learned what you’ve earned
Ship of joy will stop you failing.

I can’t conceal it like I know I did before
I got to tell you now the ship is ready
Waiting on the shore/shelf.

Wind is high so am I
As the shore sinks in the distance.
Dreams unfold seek the gold.
Gold that’s brighter than sunlight.

Sail away see the day
Dawning on a new horizon
Gold’s insight shining bright
Brighter than the sun that’s rising.

3000 sails on high are straining in the wind
A raging sea below
Is this voyage coming to an end

— Bob Daisley, Sailing the Acid Trip Ocean


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5581 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/11/2011
Subject: Re: Caduceus: mycopercep shows sep ctrl-lev relations/harmony
The ouroboros circle around the Wheatstone balance-bridge at top of HKN shield is formed by rays. Rays = Amanita undercap.

Compare JHVH at top of Rosicrucian Invisible College:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath/photos/album/516071947/pic/5907724/view?picmode=large


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5582 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/11/2011
Subject: Re: Caduceus: mycopercep shows sep ctrl-lev relations/harmony
The spine of the caduceus = testing, demonstration, and determination of control-power directionality, which is concluded to flow one-directionally from the transcendent center of control down to the egoic center of control.

Heimarmene control-power is greater above and lesser below; thus the snakes are bigger at top than bottom. Serpents represent cybersteering control-power. There is more of that power up at the transcendent level than down at the egoic level, and even less at the marionette level. Suppose God controls Fate.

God — great serpent power
Fate — large serpent power
Man — small serpent power
Marionette — tiny serpent power


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5583 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/11/2011
Subject: Re: Rod/spear/axis/pole = demo of hi lev’s ctrl of lo lev ctrlr
A chain held by JHVH’s hand-from-clouds, down to Sophia, who holds a chain, down to the monkey: directional control from transcendent to egoic levels, from divine to human levels.
Group: egodeath Message: 5584 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/11/2011
Subject: JHVH as infinite hierarchical regress
< below, means “controls”

Consider the divine Royal We as meaning *hierarchical* gods, not parallel gods; eg:
Demeter < Zeus < Heimarmene
Demeter < Heimarmene < Zeus
The Fates = plural — are they actually vertical rather than parallel?

Demeter < Zeus < Fate[1] < Fate[2] < Fate[3] < …

“We” can mean “Demeter speaking as Zeus and the hierarchy of the Fates above him”.

The 3 divine regions above the fixed stars can be “the Fates, under JHVH”

The chain Sophia holds can be to a puppet or to a chariot-pulling animal. Man’s lower, egoic level is a center of control-power activity; he pulls strings on inferiors, such as slaves, marionettes (puppets), and work animals.

king marionette < Demeter < Zeus < Fate 1 < Fate 2 < Fate 3 < …

The figure of a jester holding a jester holding a jester…

The Mysteries of Cybernetic Control. The Cybernetic Control Mysteries: as Watts asked, queried, puzzled, or riddled: “Who controls the controller?”

The higher controller can well be considered as a hierarchy of control-centers. Was that a common idea in antiquity, in Mystery Religions? They thought about heimarmene and gods. Typically they talk either of fate being above the gods, or below them. Either way forms at least 2 hierarchical levels, unless heimarmene & gods are exchangeable.

Fate allotted (Moira) realms to Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. The gods thus act as intermediaries between mortals/immortals & heimarmene. Heimarmene assigns control to the gods. The gods serve as a personification-interface to heimarmene. In Gnosticism, demiurge = heimarmene, God = controller over heimarmene. Gnosticism thus suggests the 3 or 4 levels:

God
demiurge
heimarmene
ego

egoic agency : heimarmene :: demiurge : God

CtrlLev[n] : CtrlLev[n+1] :: CtrlLev[n+x] : CtrlLev[n+x+1]
CtrlLev[n] : CtrlLev[n+1] :: CtrlLev[n+x] : CtrlLev[n+x+1]
CtrlLev[m] : CtrlLev[m+1] :: CtrlLev[n] : CtrlLev[n+1]

Demeter : Fates :: Fates : Zeus
Is Demeter ruled by Zeus and Fates? What’s the relation among Demeter, Zeus, and Fates, where those 3 are considered as centers of cybersteering control-power?


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5585 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/11/2011
Subject: Re: Rod/spear/axis/pole = demo of hi lev’s ctrl of lo lev ctrlr
Horizontal notation reveals the “spear in side, killing ego” idea:

Jesus<—-God

God—->Jesus

puppet<—-Jesus<—-God

God—->Jesus—->puppet

That’s missing the symbol of *increased perception of* control-levels dependency — eye, wings, torch/fire/sun.


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5586 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/11/2011
Subject: Control-levels concord pact applied to nations/war
During mycoinitiation, egoic thinking (shaped as if independent autonomous center of cybersteering control-power) initially tries to fight against the now-perceived threatening, alien, uncontrollable source of the mind’s control-thoughts. Then egoic thinking realizes that it’s always relied on that source, and been actually impotent with respect to it, without perceiving that that was the case. Then egoic thinking learns it has no alternative but to trust the source of its own thoughts, even though that source can be seen as too mysterious to trust.

Similarly, nations initially rebel against Caesar (who is a helpless puppet of Zeus), who in his wrath, overpowers them. But then like a woman who has been abducted and overpowered by her new husband, the nation learns to trust Caesar, and a peace and harmony accord is reached, and calmness and ease is restored.


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5587 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/11/2011
Subject: Hermaphrodite, sun&moon-headed body
The transcendent center of cybersteering control-power in one’s mind is male, sun, source of light (control-power). The controller of the source of one’s control-thoughts.

The egoic center of cybersteering control-power in one’s mind is female, moon, reflected light (control-power).

A person as a control agent is a combination of two centers of cybersteering control-power: egoic and transcendent, which work together.

The directional control-power relationship is:

Sun—->Moon

Moon<—-Sun

Sun
|
|
|
V
Moon


Male—->Female

Female<—-Male

Male
|
|
|
V
Female


Transcendent—->Egoic

Egoic<—-Transcendent

Transcendent
|
|
|
V
Egoic


That’s ‘Egoic’ in the sense of post-initiation egoic, not pre-initiation ‘Egoic’ which takes as real the impression (not yet exposed, pierced to death, tested, and disproved) that the mind has only a single independent and autonomous center of cybersteering control-power.


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5588 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/11/2011
Subject: The Hammer of Interpretation
Every religious, mystic, mythic, or esoteric symbol or image represents using mushrooms to perceive the two levels of control in the person: the higher level of control, which is the uncontrollable source of thoughts; and the lower level of control, which is person as a controller in the world.

Two centers of cybersteering control-power operate in the mind, together forming personal control agency moving along one’s worldline that is embedded in unchanging spacetime.


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5589 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/11/2011
Subject: Re: The Hammer of Interpretation
Every religious, mystic, mythic, or esoteric symbol or image represents using mushrooms to perceive the two levels of control in the person: the higher level of control, which is the uncontrollable source of thoughts; and the lower level of control, which is the person experienced as a control agent in the world.

Two centers of cybersteering control-power operate in the mind, together forming personal control agency. This is helpfully represented as a control-agent moving along a worldline-path that is embedded in unchanging spacetime.


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5590 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/11/2011
Subject: Maximally condensed summary of Transcendent Knowledge
This is a transitional draft posting, to demonstrate my ideas being roughed out and condensed, boiled-down to the skeleton, so that the only thing left is hard-core Pearl Of Great Price. This is of interest for the Theory of Discovery/Innovation, and Philosophy of Science. This is a technique to further condense and make more punchy, cogent, the Abstract that opens my main article.

This is part of my Phase 3 work. Phase 1: Core theory. Phase 2: historical/metaphorical extension. Phase 3: propagation/delivery/communication.


I discovered that my extremely condensed Abstract of my main Theory-specification article has a fluff or non-core sentence at the start and end; the general pattern in my Abstract has been:

Introductory fluff sentence
Hard-core essence of the theory, like “The cat sat on the mat.”
Criticism fluff sentence

I am now going to tell you some information.
The cat sat on the mat.
Other expressions of the information are incorrect.

Reduces to:
The cat sat on the mat.

In the case of this theory, the hard core reduces to:

using mushrooms to loosen cognition, thus gaining the ability to perceive:
two levels of control, the lower helplessly dependently controlled by the higher which is the source of thoughts
most easily modelled as presetness of thoughts as a worldline embedded in unchanging spacetime block with time as a space-like dimension and a single, preset, pre-existing future

What to call this hard-core piece of knowledge about loosecog, cybernetics, and heimarmene, and metaphor, and the socially practically important political use and abuse of this knowledge, and, how to shove aside the wrong, confusing, historicist misinterpretation of such metaphor?

When I finished, uploaded, and announced the final draft of the main article, Sally pointed out to me that the article was weak in one important point, about the meaning of the Cross in its cultural — political — context.

The article *barely* touches on it — deeply profound, but inappropriately fleeting (each word in the condensed main article costs a million dollars; not only is the article all “beef”, as in “Where’s the beef, Wilber and Ruck?”, but the article goes beyond that to be all top-quality pieces of “beef”, with zero fat — this is a plate of beef fit for a king, only the best cuts, trimmed, expertly optimally cooked.

Watts didn’t have the ultracomplicated edifice of all knowledge in outline which Ken Wilber strives to provide as best as Wilber can though lacking enlightenment about what’s the most important revelation and realization experience in religious experiencing, and Watts didn’t recognize that all religion is mushroom-based like Ruck, and Watts doesn’t see the merit and relevance of heimarmene like authors diasporically scattered apart in 15 separate fields attend to bits of determinism.

But what Watts did so right that makes him the most important and sober, perspicacious, perceptive writer on religion, is that he *did* focus on the very most important thing to focus on: the Satori revelation is about the personal problematization of “Who controls the self-controller?” This makes Daniel Wegner important too, as self-control psychologist, though like Watts, he’s still not good enough at using language to communicate with Philosophical precision.

Watts and Wegner aren’t masters of Semantics; they end up too ambiguous to grasp and express and comprehend, as I rightly and appropriately, adequately phrase it, “the specific, explicitly defined sense in which ‘self’ as control-agent wielding self-control power is real, and in which, illusory.” If you haven’t mastered semantics well enough to write that, you cannot write clearly enough, as you could and ought to, about enlightenment, revelation, satori.


Let the word ‘political’ mean social-political, as in “everything is political”, in my future writings. That is, ‘political’ in the broad sense; political philosophy; the power-structuring and control-structuring of society.


Label each part of the max-condensed Abstract as follows:

{name/label/title of knowledge-content}
{axiom 1: cybernetics} [most important]
{axiom 2: heimarmene} [2nd most import: useful organization to support grasping #1]
{axiom 3: dissociation} [3rd most; key doorway/window, not content of revealed mystery (vs Ruck)]
{axiom 4: metaphor} [4th most; merely for vivid communication of the content
{axiom 5: ahistoricity} [mere preliminary clearing of misinterpretation]
{axiom 6: politics} [application of content to societal control-structure, pairs w/ #5]

in brief… use a notation like Ruck’s Greek Myth book to flag key themes. Numbering is too volatile and indirect. Just define and state in terms of 1-word axiom names.

{title}
{cybernetics}
{heimarmene}
{dissociation}
{metaphor}
{ahistoricity}
{politics}

The above is a perfect minimal-possible outline of the complete Theory, except that ‘title’ is an empty undefined variable name, declared but not defined; change it to “transcendent knowledge is the understanding of the following”; giving:

{transcendence=}
{cybernetics}
{heimarmene}
{dissociation}
{<–metaphor}
{-ahistoricity}
{–>politics}

<– means ‘metaphor is about the above’
– means “remove the historicity assumption, which is incorrect and prevents understanding the above
–> means “the above has been applied directly to politics in two warring ways, which is of topmost importance that we understand”

The *absolute* barest minimalist skeletal *backbone* arrangement of the phrases or components in my Theory abstract is:

transcendence=
cybernetics
heimarmene
dissociation
metaphor
ahistoricity
politics

Strip-down the Theory summary to only an introductory sheer label, followed by only the most essential key phrase of each axiom:


{name/label/title of knowledge-content}
Religious revelation and enlightenment, cybernetic ego transcendence, is the understanding that

{axiom 1: cybernetics}
personal control agency has two centers of cybersteering control-power
destabilizes self-control power
the death of the self that was conceived of as an autonomous control-agent
Self-control stability is restored
lower-level personal control agent is forced to trust the uncontrollable source of thoughts
The uncontrollable higher center of cybersteering control-power is heimarmene or a transcendent quasi-personal source of thoughts

{axiom 2: heimarmene}
worldline embedded in spacetime
experience of being controlled by frozen block-universe determinism with a single, pre-existing, ever-existing future
Experiencing this model of control and time

{axiom 3: dissociation}
using mushrooms to loosen cognitive functioning and make it perceptible
trigger the intense mystic altered state, producing loose binding of cognitive associations
loose cognitive binding
mental model is transformed to take into account the helpless dependence of personal control on the uncontrollable source of thoughts
Religious initiation is a series of mushroom induced loose-cognition sessions and instruction on the two levels of control, and how the lower-level center of control is forced to trust the uncontrollable higher-level center of control.
transformation of the mental model of personal control

{axiom 4: metaphor}
Myth describes this mystic-state experiential insight and mental model transformation
An ordinary-state based attempt to figure out religious metaphor is futile because unable to perceive the two levels of control and the uncontrollable source of thoughts. Ordinary-state perception is limited so that it’s not able to perceive the uncontrollable arising of control-thoughts. Ordinary state attempts to interpret metaphor are unfocused and invent a wide variety of interpretations without recognizing the towering vastly greater relevance of asymmetrical control-level, one-directional … diode. Shining light on the control-directionality diode.

{axiom 5: ahistoricity}
Figures in religious myth are not historical, but are personifications of the realization that there are 2 control levels in the mind. Jesus, Paul, and the Ancient Church Fathers are essentially literary inventions and allegorical representations of transcendent knowledge about perceiving and understanding the two control-levels that exist in personal control power.

{axiom 6: politics}
Perceiving and understanding the 2-level control relationship in the mind, can be used as a template for social-political structuring, as either a power hierarchy with some people standing over other people in a controller/controlled or master/slave relationship (a power hierarchy); or, an egalitarian democracy with each person positioned in parallel because each person contains the same relationship of the two control-levels.


Class assignment: The final step in composing the ultimate compact clear expression of Revelation: put the above phrases into the following structure:

Transcendent knowledge is [or, Religious knowledge is]
cybernetics
heimarmene
dissociation
metaphor
ahistoricity
politics

To highlight this structure, provide two versions of the Abstract/Summary. In one, flag the above structure elements; other, omit. An ideal definition of a system includes examples, but first, minimize the use of metaphor; can add that in later versions, after the strictly minimal definition is summarized.

_____________________

Assignment

Using the following outline sequence, provide the most condensed, simplest, clearest possible summary of the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence.

religion is
cybernetics
heimarmene
dissociation
metaphor
ahistoricity
politics

1. Provide the minimal abstract/summary following the above structure. Omit examples and metaphors. Don’t flag the sections.

2. Provide the minimal abstract/summary following the above structure. Omit examples and metaphors. Flag the sections using the above keywords.

3. Provide the minimal abstract/summary following the above structure. Include examples and metaphors. Don’t flag the sections.

4. Provide the minimal abstract/summary following the above structure. Include examples and metaphors. Flag the sections using the above keywords.


The result must be better than the following:

Every religious, mystic, mythic, or esoteric symbol or image represents using mushrooms to perceive the two levels of control in the person: the higher level of control, which is the uncontrollable source of thoughts; and the lower level of control, which is the person experienced as a control agent in the world.

Two centers of cybersteering control-power operate in the mind, together forming personal control agency. This is helpfully represented as a control-agent moving along a worldline-path that is embedded in unchanging spacetime.

_____________________


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5591 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 21/11/2011
Subject: Re: Maximally condensed summary of Transcendent Knowledge
Testing (judgment, trial) may be a missing major component for the bare minimal outline. How do we conduct a trial to judge whether we can control our thought-source and see if our future is open vs. heimarmene-closed, in a relevant sense? It’s the old Trial and Judgment and delivering-over in chains as one who is accursed, destined for destruction.
Group: egodeath Message: 5592 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 21/11/2011
Subject: Proof by trial test demo of Noncontrol/Fatedness
In what way is the worldline/heimarmene model (the simplest possible 4D spacetime model, with time as a space-like dimension) helpful in thinking about problematized self-control (the inability to control one’s source of control-thoughts)? Why is the worldline/heimarmene model helpful? The worldline/heimarmene model is clearest, simplest, most forcible, most tangible, most concrete, most easily pictured, most easily modelled, most easily visualizable.

Is the closed-future premise what kills ego? Mostly not. It’s mostly the uncontrollability of the source of control-thoughts that fatally wounds ego.

Ego is fatally wounded, fated to die, fated to die of death by fate, fated to undergo death by heimarmene. Whether the future already always exists and is preset and single, or not, regardless of all that, ego dies because it has no practical control over the source of thoughts, particularly including control-thoughts.


This is truly work on the Core theory: exactly define the relationship between non-control of thoughts, and the idea of heimarmene. Does ego die because the mind sees that heimarmene is a fact? Does ego die because the mind sees that its personal control center is certainly not able to control the source of thoughts?

Things appear so uncertain. We need to be as keen a judge as Solomon. We need PROOF BY TEST. This need is nothing new!

Testing (judgment, trial) is a component of the Theory when stark axioms are well put forward. How are these axioms justified and co-justified? How do we conduct a trial to judge whether we can control our thought-source and see if our future is open vs. heimarmene-closed, in a relevant sense? It’s the old Trial and Judgment and delivering-over in chains as one who is accursed, destined for destruction.
____________________________

Proof and Judgment by Trial

Everyone knows for certain that we can’t know anything for certain.

Maybe the egoic local center of control *can* control the source of control-thoughts.

Maybe heimarmene is not the case: the future is open, or there are open-future manyworlds, or closed future (preexisting) manyworlds; my infinite parallel futures all exist or will exist.

Suppose Mithraism initiates are perfectly impossible to fool; they are hard-headed military S.O.B.s, same as heavy acid-enthusiast Metal musicians; they are perfectly rational and critical, the opposite of gullible (but neither are they radically skeptical to the point of absurdly). They are like engineers: focused on what works, and there’s no question about what works and what doesn’t work.

Only by proving to them with 100% certainty the facts of noncontrol and heimarmene, would any of those initiates ever have believed the hierarchical control relationships regarding the source of our control-thoughts.

Engineers, Mithraic soldiers, Zen masters, and no-nonsense intrepid Acid Metal frontiersman all readily agree: it is proven, tested, and demonstrated that you cannot control the source of your control-thoughts; your source of your control-thoughts is uncontrollable by you, where the latter ‘you’ means you in any practical sense.

Just like you can practically, generally, decide to go to sleep, you can, at most, profoundly relax your mind such that thoughts don’t arise — but you cannot dictate what those thoughts are, when they arise. Our control of our thinking is inherently roundabout and indirect and subject to the unfathomable whims of the mysterious imperceptible source of our thoughts. Thoughts arise by themselves, from beyond our practical domain of control.

We have no practical control over the source of our thoughts. That is the datum to be theoretically explained by hypothesis, modelling, and theory — and described by religious myth and esoteric symbol. A degree less, is the experience and hypothesis of heimarmene. If I have no steering-power, no steering-muscles, no steering-arms, then my future and worldline-path is, for all practical purposes, ever pre-set, closed, always pre-existing, forever pre-determined, forever predestined.

Even if we nebulously adhere to envisioning the future as “open”, still, if my arms of steering-power are illusory, then the future is practically closed, preset — so grins-in heimarmene in one equivalent form or another: the future is closed, one way or another, whichever exact way you choose to envision it.

A particular practical profound definition of ‘noncontrol’, “inability for the person to control their own source of control-thoughts” is necessarily logically systemically cross-entailed with the concomitant particular practical profound definition of ‘Heimarmene’ or ‘Fatedness’ or ‘Destiny’ or “Vertical Determinism” or Determinism. Perhaps what’s not at issue is “whether” the two axioms necessarily entail each other; perhaps the relevant approach is to say:

Banqueters in Antiquity experienced A) a particular kind of noncontrol; and B) a particular kind of presetness (unchangeability) — such that, that kind of noncontrol and that kind of presetness necessarily entail each other, or are co-entailed. Don’t question the co-entailment and worry about proving that; rather, worry about identifying the exact specific kind of so-called “noncontrol” and so-called “presetness” (so-called “heimarmene”) that are co-entailed.

Thus it might be safer to be vaguer and only speak firmly in terms of:

===========================
Loose cognition unassailably shows and demonstrates a kind of noncontrol and fatedness that are co-entailed.

= trial, judgment, test, prove
===========================

You can hurl all the postmodern skepticism you want at it, and cling to your claim to wield kingly power over the source of your control-thoughts… but in the pathetic end, why are you, in postmodern kingly glory, as you would have us agree, that although you are undeniably being led in chains to be nailed to the cross mockingly glorified as “the man who has power over his own thought-source”…

This analogy is not merely my clever idea I alone had, that occurred to me alone. The mocking of the soldiers, “If you are king, more powerful than Caesar, then prove it, then we will believe your claim: come down off your cross, king!”

If you believe you can control your source of control-thoughts, and if you care to know the truth about this, then you must put your claim to the test, trial by fire, to prove at least to yourself if not to anyone outside your mind, what you claim is the case. How can I prove to myself that I cannot control the source of my control-thoughts? How can I prove to myself that heimarmene rules my life?

You would have us concur, after your postmodern-skepticism lecture, that we can’t *prove*-prove that you can’t control your thoughts. However, *we have limits* to our gullible acceptance of your infinite demand for postmodern wise-guy skepticism. True, I cannot in fact *prove*-prove that I can’t control my thought-source. But: all testing of my power against that of God, who is controller of my thought-source, has always proved me the loser in the power battle.

I fought against the source of my thoughts. I ended up in panic and chaos, made to think the most terrible thoughts and I have been forced — it simply completely seems — forced to think terrible thoughts that kill my ability to control; I proved like I proved that hitting my hand with hammer hurts, I proved that I cannot control my thoughts, and in the battle-test, I tried; I fought; I tested; I lost.

My thoughts took off in terrifying direction and there was nothing I could do; I saw a vision of my inability to prevent and steer my own thoughts. It is a wonderful, glorious testing, burning away with fire my questions and my claims to power. I ended up nailed to the Cross, with mocking crown, pierced by destiny, destined to die a death by destiny. What exactly would you have me do and think, to prove, to prove-prove, my ability to control my thought-source?

How did they accomplish this persuasion in Mithraic initiation? How exactly do you *prove* to an infinite postmodern radical skeptic, that he is helplessly subject to the mysterious unfathomable uncontrollable source of his own control-thoughts?

We have a contest of who can be the most hard-headed skeptical:

o The Zen master, who doesn’t analyze and speculate, but merely observes how things are, in the mind, at the root of thoughts arising

o The venerable intrepid no-nonsense Acid Rock frontiersman who has pushed all the tests to their ultimate limits

o The definitively grounded and practical Mithraic soldiers, who have no time for nonsense and pretence, only time to worship the god of What Works, Not What Doesn’t Work

o And above all, the Engineer, whose circuit can only give the bottom-line executive, Emperor the answer, by emitting a green light or a red light.

The circuit either works to control, or doesn’t. Can you control the source of your control thoughts: yes, or no? Which is it? Don’t B.S. us, or yourself, or anyone. This is a serious matter. This is war. We live or die based on the accuracy of your position. Do we (as experienced as practical control agents in the world), control the origination of our own control-thoughts, yes or no? What is the simple, practical, bottom-line truth of this most-key matter?

All the mystics are unanimous: “We have run all the tests! We have scientifically tested this, observed, tested again, and shared our conclusions communicating among us. This is our conclusion, as surely as “hitting one’s thumb with a hammer hurts, as example of scientific testing of subjective experiencing”.

We cannot control the origination or source of our thoughts, emphatically including our control-thoughts. Do you really think that those who tested this infinitely offensive doctrine didn’t think of every way to try and struggle?

Every one who ever tried, tried their hardest, and ended up, to the extent they tried, tangled up in self-control seizure, panic, self-war, wrestling themselves to the ground, until they broke their own leg so that now they walk along their worldline path with one control-foot in the egoic control-center, and one foot forced upon their mind by the transcendent control-center.

The one-foot is the mushroom *but more than that*, the one-foot, the crippled cyberking, the hokie-pokie of king Jesus Christ, is: the old Egodeath “Hammer of Interpretation”. Recall:
______________________

The Hammer of Interpretation

Every religious, mystic, mythic, or esoteric symbol or image represents using mushrooms to perceive the two levels of control in the person: the higher level of control, which is the uncontrollable source of thoughts; and the lower level of control, which is the person experienced as a control agent in the world.

Two centers of cybersteering control-power operate in the mind, together forming personal control agency. This is helpfully represented as a control-agent moving along a worldline-path that is embedded in unchanging spacetime.
______________________

Therefore apply that to the question of “What does one-foot, one sandle, one leg-crippled king, limp” mean? The asymmetrical-pair master-key theme: the greater half and the lesser half. More specifically and helpfully: The dominant half and the submissive half. The control-power-originating half and the control-power-reflecting half.

All over myth appears asymmetrical pairs. “There are two things that are related and similar, yet different, and in relation.” This means: higher and lower control-centers in the mind, forming our personal control agency.

One leg this, but other leg that. The ego delusion exists before initiation, and in a lesser sense exists after initiation: ego becomes crippled, footnoted, profoundly qualified and delimited, chained, pinned, restrained, belittled, circumscribed, just as the serpent under Michael the Archangel’s spear is still alive, but is chained, restrained, pinned.

The crippled leg is you, as practical control-agent able to control things in your life; but that control-ability is actually carried by the whole, uncrippled leg, the one that is discovered and affirmed during initiation, the higher controller that gives your thoughts.

We cannot control the source of our thoughts.

We ran every possible test anyone could think of. If you rebel against the source of your thoughts, you are guaranteed –as much as science and math and engineering guarantee anything — that you will surely, inevitably, end up in self-control seizure: the Wrath of the Gods.

Every scientific test demonstrates and proves that only when you repudiate your claim to be able to control the source of your thoughts, and you instead trust, love, and rely on the uncontrollable “that which is the source of your thoughts”, does accord, peace, harmony, tranquility reappear in your cybernetic mind.

To claim you can control the source of your thoughts is certain ego death and self-control seizure — which is the wonderful rapture, the beautiful abduction, Judas, who delivers you over to the sacrifice, to sacrifice your claim to be able to control your thought-source.

Judas is the wonderful glorious divine Proving, the wrestling, the pinning and defeat of our claim, which is the method that we must use to be persuaded and convicted and convinced that — regardless of infinitely skeptical and impractical postmodernists — there is one thing we have tested, observed, and been shockingly *forced* and *overpowered* by the Power of God, there is one thing that we know for certain, in the most vivid and terrible, awesome way: we cannot control the source of our thoughts.

We are helplessly dependent on that uncontrollable originator of our own thoughts, and that originator is not “ourselves” in any practical sense.


No One at the Bridge

Crying back to consciousness
The coldness grips my skin
The sky is pitching violently
Drawn by shrieking winds

Seaspray blurs my vision
The waves roll by so fast
Save my ship of freedom
I’m lashed, helpless, to the mast

Remembering when first I held
The wheel in my own hands
I took the helm so eagerly
And sailed for distant lands

But now the sea’s too heavy
And I just don’t understand
Why must my crew desert me
When I need a guiding hand?

Call out for direction
And there’s no one there to steer
Shout out for salvation
But there’s no one there to hear

Cry out supplication
For the maelstrom is near
Scream out desperation
But no one cares to hear

— Professor Elektron


One what basis of 100% certainty and infallible proof did Mithraism initiates concur that indeed, noncontrol&heimarmene? Is unassailable proof of heimarmene unassailable proof of noncontrol? Is unassailable proof of noncontrol unassailable proof of heimarmene?

How do the Mithraism initiates Neil Peart and Bob Daisley *know* with *certainty* that heimarmene is the case?

How do the Mithraism initiates Neil Peart and Bob Daisley *know* with *certainty* that inability to control the thought-source is the case?

How do the Mithraism initiates Neil Peart and Bob Daisley *know* with *certainty* that heimarmene and inability to control the thought-source necessarily mutually entail and cross-imply each other?


In the extensively experienced and thoroughly analyzed loosecog state, are we thoroughly justified in affirming heimarmene?

In the extensively experienced and thoroughly analyzed loosecog state, are we thoroughly justified in affirming personal inability to control the thought-source?


In the extensively experienced and thoroughly analyzed loosecog state, are we thoroughly justified in concluding that personal inability to control the thought-source necessarily implies heimarmene?

In the extensively experienced and thoroughly analyzed loosecog state, are we thoroughly justified in concluding that heimarmene necessarily implies personal inability to control the thought-source?


The given data to be explained:
Ancient banqueting trippers experienced heimarmene.
Ancient banqueting trippers experienced noncontrol.
Ancient banqueting trippers experienced heimarmene together with noncontrol.

Or perhaps even more pertinently to the challenge I’m facing of connecting the two revealed axioms, the datum to be explained is:
Ancient banqueting trippers experienced heimarmene together with noncontrol.
Ancient banqueting trippers experienced heimarmene in conjunction with [conjoined with] noncontrol.
Ancient banqueting trippers experienced heimarmene conjoined with noncontrol.
Ancient banqueting trippers experienced noncontrol conjoined with heimarmene.

“together with” stays agnostic about whether the two are deeply interlinked as two sides of the same coin, mutually entailed: maybe the are, maybe they aren’t. To *some* extent, certainly, as things that are experinced, heimarmene implies noncontrol, and noncontrol implies heimarmene.

I’m using “together with” or “in conjunction with” instead of “and”. Heimarmene and noncontrol are linked, fused, not merely summed, as if you might experience one without the other.


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5593 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 21/11/2011
Subject: Re: Proof by trial test demo of Noncontrol/Fatedness
Generally relevant, on the theme of “two legs, one weakened”; two brothers battling; wrestling with the angel of the Lord:

Genesis 32 (Amplified Bible)

7Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed

9Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, the Lord …

10I am not worthy of the least of all the mercy and loving-kindness and all the faithfulness which You have shown to Your servant, for with [only] my staff I passed over this Jordan [long ago], and now I have become two companies.

11Deliver me, I pray You, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; for I fear him, lest he come and smite [us all] …

12And You said, I will surely do you good and make your descendants as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.



24And Jacob was left alone, and a Man wrestled with him until daybreak.

25And when [the [a]Man] saw that He did not prevail against [Jacob], He touched the hollow of his thigh; and Jacob’s thigh was put out of joint as he wrestled with Him.

26Then He said, Let Me go, for day is breaking. But [Jacob] said, I will not let You go unless You declare a blessing upon me.

27[The Man] asked him, What is your name? And [in shock of realization, whispering] he said, Jacob [supplanter, schemer, trickster, swindler]!

28And He said, Your name shall be called no more Jacob [supplanter], but Israel [contender with God]; for you have contended and have power with God and with men and have prevailed.

29Then Jacob asked Him, Tell me, I pray You, what [in contrast] is Your name? But He said, Why is it that you ask My name? And [b][the Angel of God declared] a blessing on [Jacob] there.

30And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel [the face of God], saying, For I have seen God face to face, and my life is spared and not snatched away.

31And as he passed Penuel [Peniel], the sun rose upon him, and he was limping because of his thigh.

32That is why to this day the Israelites do not eat the sinew of the hip which is on the hollow of the thigh, because [the Angel of the Lord] touched the hollow of Jacob’s thigh on the sinew of the hip.
Group: egodeath Message: 5594 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 21/11/2011
Subject: Re: Maximally condensed summary of Transcendent Knowledge
Proving, demonstrating, and judging by testing-trial, that we cannot control the thought-source, is not an outline component as a sibling of Cybernetics, Heimarmene, Dissociation, Metaphor, Ahistoricity, or Politics. Such testing leads to self-control seizure and is part of Cybernetics and is part of the reason why the Cybernetics component is big and most important.

Cybertesting is a child of the Cybernetics component, not another top-level component.
Group: egodeath Message: 5595 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 21/11/2011
Subject: Split ctrl-model to 2 parts, -delu., perceive/map T’t
In loosecog initiation, the autonomous single-center personal control-model splits into 2 parts, and annihilates part of the Egoic model, and adds perception and mental modelling of the Transcendent ever-present portion.


The Work of Translation and Mapping of the Theory to Myth Versions, such as the Passion Versions

I here post another draft-in-development example, as a valuable snapshot of breakthrough-in-process. And I need rest and attending to other things. This is more a matter of cashing in on recent breakthrough; I’m in the turn-the-crank phase, which however is important. Calculus in hand, I proceed to analyze everything in sight, which takes time; it’s a later phase of time-consuming labor, the playing out of the previous breakthrough.

As I perform the breakthrough translation and description of this Egyptian hieroglyph language, I exclaim in the midst of my success: These mythmakers were not unsophisticated! They knew what they were doing! They’re keeping me on my toes, as one who’s got the decryption code figured out and is laboring to apply it to work-through the translation. No wonder the Renaissance was nuts (enthusiastic) over the Egyptian hieroglyphics language. All this religious myth is a kind of high-art encryption/decryption game.

I have religious metaphor nailed, in terms of cybercontrol levels and mental model transformation (subtracting, adding, and transforming per Paul Thagard’s Conceptual Revolutions). But still, some adjustment of the core theory description is required, in conjunction with mapping selected entities of the Passion story, to be able to cleanly map the Passion metaphor-system to the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence (CTET) explanatory paradigm.

I *do* still believe that it’s fairly straightforward to map “the” Passion story (there are variants) to “the” Theory (variable in how it’s presented). Now that the Theory is in hand, that’s not a “hard problem” like figuring out how consciousness itself works. It just requires a number of pages of writing, more than 2 or 3, to list the poetic range of good mappings, then process and refine those down to a tiny compact hard-core summary.

Douglas Hofstadter can appreciate the inherent limitations and problems, choices I have to make, in translation, even if I am translating to an “Amplified Bible” format (allowing parenthetical clarifications and alternative wordings) instead of regular prose. There is a certain legitimate range of interpreting the upward bound rebel next to Jesus; of all aspects of authentic initiation experiencing, several can legitimately map to the figure of the upward bound rebel.

The initiate “goes up” in *various* senses! For example, even the humble egoic mental structure is *partly* retained in *some* form, in *some* aspects, after initiation, so is that not an “up” movement? “Down” metaphor in the Passion has challenges too: while in the tomb, Christ descends *down* to Hades/Hell/Purgatory to lift up the purified souls of the elect, the saints and prophets. So now it starts to get Gnostically elaborate like the set of all 4 Matrix movies.

Imagine a minimalist passion, with no Barabbas, no Judas, no rebels next to Jesus, no descent into Purgatory. The result — a simple Pauline version of the Passion — would be easy to map to the Theory. Jesus is crucified, then he ascends. Jesus = preinitiation personal control-model with single pseudo-autonomous, pseudo-independent center of control: pre-initiation egoic thinking (God or higher portion of your mind is working behind the scenes, unseen, unperceived).

After initiation, the purely delusion portion of your thinking remains in the tomb or underworld (that’s the false component of the Remainder). Christ = purified egoic thinking that remains; the true component of the Remainder; the true and valid lower control-center that’s been cleaned of demonic thinking. Christ also partly is the transcendent part of you, ever-working behind the scenes, now perceived; the God portion of you. Then God is sort of the same as the higher part of Christ.

So it’s slightly awkward designing a Theory and mapping it to the simple, Pauline version or equivalent of the Passion. But when Passion mystic mythmakers get all sophisticated and ambitious, incorporating Saturnalia themes, in addition to Dionysian themes, and Passover themes, and what have you… it becomes increasingly difficult and debatable what the “right” or “best” or “most elegant” or “simplest” way is to arrange the Theory, and to map the Theory to the Passion metaphor system(s).

Not to mention that we have 4 different Passion versions in the canon, and more extracanonical. So I have to specify “Here is the specific version of the Passion that I am going to demonstrate how to map to the Theory and how to arrange the Theory to enable one of the cleanest such mappings.”

The Theory is flexible in expression, and the Passion is flexible in variations, and the mappings between the two are somewhat multiple; there’s a bit of a range of possible mappings — such is the conceptual language of Myth, even when totally, ideally understood with a strong sense of the true priority-sequence (Cybernetics, Hiemarmene, Loosecog, Metaphor, Ahistoricity, Politics).

Now that I can translate the language, and I have the foreign manuscripts, I have to decide *which* of the myths to translate first, and how elaborately to translate — and “translate the Passion story of Christ” turns out to be a bit of a project when you get into it — not a struggle, not a mystery, but a labor of suitable translation-renderings and mappings. What is the best priority sequence in the queue?

This is the problem of a successful new paradigm: there’s a ton of work to do to apply and also still some work to fine-tune, fill-in, flesh out within the core theory. OK, here’s a way to describe my recent breakthroughs:

Phase 1 (1985-1988-1997): Core theory.

Phase 2: (1998-2001-2007): History/metaphor extention — applied to first, proof-of-coherence wave of metaphor examples.

Phase 3: Communication/propagation, and also, applied to second wave of metaphor examples (eg blowing wide open the Mystery Religions and important figures of Alchemy) — also tightening up some Core theory concepts and the expression of them.


Part of the ego goes up with Christ into heaven: the legit purified part of it — just not the purely-deluded, purely erroneous aspect of the egoic mental model; the latter, it’s easy to conclude, is a useful identification of what *cannot* be mapped to the upward-bound crucified rebel, so I can utilize “process of elimination” to some extent in mapping the Theory to the Passion hieroglyph-document I’m decoding.

The Theory explicitly provides the real meaning of the Passion — insofar as their is a single vastly dominant meaning. It’s like trying to map a jungle to a garden, to domesticate a wild beast, to explain rationally the mystic poetic inspirations. It works — but don’t expect the mapping and translation to be clean *by all measures*, just as the Greek word Heimarmene is not a perfect synonym for the Latin word Fatum, and both are a rather poor match with the English word Determinism.

Now I know the pain of translators! And the Poetic Science of translation. I am emphatically not saying metaphor is ineffable or untranslatable to scientific explicit Theory — but that translation is typically a matter of tradeoffs. There’s an expression in programming languages like “idiom friction”, metaphor system mismatch, dissonance, mal-fit, a limited degree (not radical or total) of incommensurability between competing paradigms.

Just like a conductor “interprets” a written score to form a particular “performance”, just like “the myth of Dionysus” is a flexible framework so you ask “Map the myth of Dionysus to the CTET — but according to which ancient writer, and which modern translator of that Greek to English?”

_____________________________________________________

The below is *less* meta-theory, more straight work of translation/mapping.


The ego is only partly illusory. After initiation, part of your self-model is cast off as dross, perishable, transient illusion. You are left with authentic lower self, and now-revealed higher self. In your mental model, you “subtract” — identify, characterize, study, model/map out, and repudiate — the supposed existence of the illusory part of the lower self. You add mental modelling of the uncontrollable transpersonal higher center of control that is part of you.

The mental model so profoundly changes, you are reborn, redefined, a spiritual death and rebirth of the person. It’s easy to define the model model before, and the mental model after; it’s hard to map the before and after structures. Before, one set of structures; after, a different set of structures, with some reuse of some structures.

This is why the metaphor story logic is hard to follow in the trial of 1) Judas-delivered 2) Jesus, letting 3) a prisoner escape, 4) one rebel descends and 5) one rebel ascends, Jesus descends into Hades then ascends, and there is then 6) Christ, and Jesus dies and also is resurrected.

There are many Passion entitities to map to Egodeath theory, and to construct Egodeath theory in reference to:
Mary, Joseph
Judas
Pilate
Jesus
Barabbas
Descending rebel
Ascending rebel
Christ
God
Mary, Joseph


Going into the Passion sequence/initiation:
Jesus, = your personal control-model before loosecog initiation

Coming out of the Passion sequence/initiation:
Christ & God, = your personal control-model after loosecog initiation. Christ = lower ctrl-ctr, God = higher ctrl-ctr.
Barabbas, = your ability to escape a disastrous fate when proving your inability to control your thought-source.
transcendent rebel/thief, = your higher ctrl-ctr after initiation.
egoic rebel/thief, = your lower ctrl-ctr after initn. & your cast-off dross self, Remainder, false claim.


Christ = God = transcendent rebel (count them as 1 control-entity/center modality/type).

Given that all players are aspects of each of us, it’s as if we throw Jesus against a wall and he breaks into ten entities/aspects of personhood-aspects.

The 1 splits into 2… but the dross is cast off, as rejected abandoned ghost, *not* part of revised ego. Is the higher, divine portion “added to the mind” during initiation? As ever, in one sense yes in one sense no. The higher control center was always secretly in place doing its work like a faithful donkey carrying you along your worldline-path through spacetime.

But the fact and situation, that God was steering your thoughts, wasn’t represented in the mental model (which is distinct from “what occurs in the mind, where ‘the mind’ includes portions beyond the current scope of perception”). Shoving aside Freud and Jung, stealing their terms for better use:

Before initiation, God is active in your mind, steering your thoughts, the secret pilot of your soul, but in a non-conscious way; that is, in a way that your mind is not aware of, in a way that isn’t incorporated into your mental model yet. The mind is not perceiving God’s control of your mind, and, distinct from that, your mind has not yet incorporated God’s control of your mind into the mental model held by your mind.


Who doesn’t come out from the Crucifixion or Passion? You *could* say: Jesus and the egoic rebel don’t come out. But Jesus has fecundity; sacrificing him, vitality and realness both are used moving forward, whereas the purely illusory and purely *deluded* aspect of the mental model of personal control is wholly burned.

o The egoic mental structure that went along with delusion is cleansed, washed clean, purified, made acceptable to God (transcendent thinking), retained and integrated per Ken Wilber.
o The purely wrong, purely deluded part is cast off forever (Ken Wilber in Atman project might say “The self no longer identifies with that old self-structure.”)

After enlightenment, the egoic self-concept remains, in a specific sense that can be specified with some precision and detail; and is done away with, in a different sense. The egoic portion of thinking remains and yet is changed. See Paul Thagard on how to model and conceptualize the process or procedures of theory-transformation.

It’s likely that the Jesus figure and story took in so many ideas and previous stories, that there are partially overlapped, multiple meaning-systems; overloaded. A simplistic model says “we have a higher and lower part”. A sophisticated, ambitious model can use ten entities in place of those two.

Mapping:

egoic control concept before initiation

After initiation:

no ego — that dross gets sent to Hades

Genuine lower self — Christ. This is, the practical self, moving through the world, as purified, de-deluded person, employing lower, local, egoic control-thinking (the true Remainder), now re-understood to not include the false part (the false Remainder).


Before initiation:
A (delusion, and real lower self, and veiled higher self)

After initiation:
B (pure delusion — perm. cast off during initiation, dross, no longer of any use)
C (real, still-useful lower self)
D (now-perceived higher self)


When the single control-center of the pre-initiation mind is split into lower subservient driven self and higher dominant driver self, when that transformation and splitting happens, there’s a third factor: the delusion portion of the pre-initiation self-concept (a portion of the control-center ideas) is cast off as dross: it is burned away in the purifying fire, leaving the real skeleton, the real portion.

It is nullified, sent to Hades’, … a complex number consists of a real portion and an imaginary portion (a multiple of the square root of -1). During initiation, the imaginary portion … these ideas are subtle and we have to decide whether we are trying to be complete and accurate, or, whether to be clear and elegant and comprehensibly simple.

During loosecog initiation, the truly deluded aspect, grossly imaginary portion of the mental self-concept is repudiated as unreal; as undesirable, desirable to be cast off and got rid of, destroyed. But the desirable, still-useful aspects of the previously constructed egoic mental model are retained, having been purified and washed clean, and are put to good use. See Wilber’s book Atman Project for some useful language about mental structures being largely retained, but “disidentified” and transcended, and transformed. Also see the book On the Existence of Fictional Objects.


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5596 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 21/11/2011
Subject: Re: Maximally condensed summary of Transcendent Knowledge
Here’s as far as I got in this great assignment exercise so far. This is top-priority and I’m looking forward to it — I must not get distracted and go deep now into any one of these ideas. This condensing-procedure will produce an awesome, tiny, powerful summary of the Theory, a diamond, an improvement on the Abstract in my main article (theory-specification).

Optimize for maximum stark simplicity. Avoiding 2nd order approximation/modelling, precision. Formulate the simplest possible, 1st-order approximation of the Theory, simplified to the extreme. But not a 1-sentence summary, which would be too ambiguous and general to constitute “revealing the mysteries”.

Assignment note: target 350 words ( = how many minutes, read slowly?)


Put best points first in each group, then delete bottom items in each group.

[religion is]
Religious knowledge is the transformative understanding and testing of personal noncontrol of thoughts in changeless spacetime, perceived by loosening mental functioning through mushrooms, how these insights are metaphorically described, recognizing such description as not literal historical reportage, and how these ideas are used to support hierarchical or egalitarian society.

[cybernetics]
Before initiation, personal control is mentally modelled as a single autonomous, independent center of control (the initial ego). After initiation, personal control is mentally modelled as consisting of two distinct centers of steering agency or control-power.
The revised ego is the lower level of and lower center of steering and control-power; this is the person experienced as a control agent in the world. The lower control-level is dependent on and helplessly subject to the higher level. The higher, dominant level of and center of steering and control-power is the uncontrollable source of thoughts:
heimarmene or a transcendent quasi-personal hidden agency as the source of thoughts. The higher control-center creates the personal thoughts inside a person’s mind, and is outside the realm of personhood; it is transpersonal.
destabilizes self-control power
the death of the self that was conceived of as an autonomous control-agent
Self-control stability is restored
lower-level personal control agent is forced to trust the uncontrollable source of thoughts
upon seeing helpless dependence of personal control on the uncontrollable source of thoughts, take a defensive stance against it, try resisting it, but forced to learn to trust it; establishing an asymmetrical trusting control-power relationship between personal control and the uncontrollable source of thoughts.

[heimarmene]
worldline embedded in spacetime
experience of being controlled by frozen block-universe determinism with a single, pre-existing, ever-existing future
Experiencing this model of control and time
helpfully represented as a control-agent moving along a worldline-path that is embedded in unchanging spacetime.
The worldline/heimarmene model is clearest, simplest, most forcible, most tangible, most concrete, most easily pictured, most easily modelled, most easily visualizable.

[dissociation]
using mushrooms to loosen cognitive functioning and make it perceptible
during which the mental model of personal control is transformed
the mental model of personal control is negated, expanded, and transformed. Illusory control agency is identified and subtracted from, added to, and transformed transformed and partly repudiated as illusory, and is expanded upward;
trigger the intense mystic altered state, producing loose binding of cognitive associations
loose cognitive binding
mental model is transformed to take into account the helpless dependence of personal control on the uncontrollable source of thoughts
Religious initiation is a series of mushroom induced loose-cognition sessions and instruction on the two levels of control, and how the lower-level center of control is forced to trust the uncontrollable higher-level center of control.
transformation of the mental model of personal control
using mushrooms to enable perceiving

[metaphor]
Myth describes this mystic-state experiential insight and mental model transformation
An ordinary-state based attempt to figure out religious metaphor is futile because unable to perceive the two levels of control and the uncontrollable source of thoughts. Ordinary-state perception is limited so that it’s not able to perceive the uncontrollable arising of control-thoughts. Ordinary state attempts to interpret metaphor are unfocused and invent a wide variety of interpretations without recognizing the towering vastly greater relevance of asymmetrical control-level, one-directional … diode. Shining light on the control-directionality diode.

[ahistoricity]
Figures in religious myth are not historical, but are personifications of perceiving that there are 2 control levels in the mind.
of transcendent knowledge about perceiving and understanding the two control-levels that exist in personal control power.

[politics]
Perceiving and understanding the 2-level control relationship in the mind, can be used as a template for social-political structuring, as either a power hierarchy with some people standing over other people in a controller/controlled or master/slave relationship (a power hierarchy); or, an egalitarian democracy with each person positioned in parallel because each person contains the same relationship of the two control-levels.


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5597 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 21/11/2011
Subject: Wheat vs. Chaff: m-model of thot-src vs junk part of ego
Yet another new idea/mapping just now, regarding non-personified theme, of “the wheat sprouted vs. the chaff discarded”:


In loosecog initiation, the transcendent uncontrollable thought-source is made perceptible, and is mentally modelled for the first time, adding a new upper area of your mental model of personal control agency; “wheat sprouting”. The wheat grain was always there, but was veiled, hidden, not manifest consciously in perception.

In loosecog initiation, the useless junk dross portion of the egoic mental model is forever discarded as sheer delusion, “chaff”. Other aspects are retained.


Demeter = wheat
Sheer delusion aspect of Persephone = chaff

Sacrificed or pinned bull = wheat thereby produced (produces new, divinized, consciousness (mental model extension) of what you are)
Sheer delusion aspect of bull = chaff


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5598 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 21/11/2011
Subject: Two accompanying up/down torchbearers, thieves, etc
Downward & upward torchbearer/”thief”:

Downward: Part of your pre-initiation mental model is discarded as useless dross.

Upward: Your mental model is expanded upward to map, now that you are made to perceive it, the higher-level control center that was secretly steering and giving you your thoughts.


Thus we have two positive figures and two negative: a pair for what you are, a pair for your *mental model of* what you are, re: personal control agency:


High/low aspects of what you always are:

God/Sol — higher control-center portion of you

Jesus/Christ/Mithras — lower control-center portion of you


Added/subtracted aspects of your *mental model of* what you are:

Up thief/torchbearer — mental model expanded upward to map higher (formerly veiled) control-center, the uncontrollable source of your thoughts. Wheat.

Down thief/torchbearer — mental model portion that’s utterly discarded and not used at all, the useless part of the egoic control-agency delusion. Chaff. Dross.


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5599 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 21/11/2011
Subject: Re: Two accompanying up/down torchbearers, thieves, etc
The torchbearers and thieves “off to the side” mean your *understanding* (mental model) of what you are.

The more central figures mean what you are:
God/Sol
Christ/Mithras
Jesus/Bull


A thing is central. A mental model of the thing is off to the side. In loosecog initiation, part of your mental model goes down, is discarded. Part of your mental model goes up, is added. Like a new building goes up, or wheat sprouts up.

“I must decrease so that the other may increase.” Understanding increases, though that’s off to the side of the main thing, which is what you are — and were but didn’t know, perceive, or understand it.


Torches = added perception.

You can *perceive* on mushrooms that the dross portion of ego is dross, chaff. And after perceiving, you can understand; revise your mental model.

The down torchbearer means the perception and then understanding (mental modelling) of the dross portion of ego as such, that that corrupt part of mental functioning is chaff, destined for destruction and sacrifice.


You can *perceive* on mushrooms that the there’s a transcendent thought-source that’s been giving you your thoughts. It springs into view like wheat sprouting. And after perceiving, you can understand; revise your mental model.

The up torchbearer means the perception and then understanding (mental modelling) of the transcendent thought-source that’s been giving you your thoughts.


The common soldiers of the Roman Empire understood all this. In olden days, every Western culture except mushroom-illiterate, OSC-only late-Modern era people understood all this.

AXIOM: The true meaning of religion, myth, and mystery religion initiation in Antiquity, through the early Modern era, is *not unduly complex* — nor is it stupidly superficial like “it all means the sun” or “here’s our explanation of how nature works” per clueless Evolutionary Psychology 1800s throwback theories.

The decoding of the hieroglyph has to be basically simple and not unduly complex — *everyone comprehended the hidden meaning*.


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5600 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 21/11/2011
Subject: Re: Two accompanying up/down torchbearers, thieves, etc
Per Edwin Johnson — and perhaps Brown — I think “renaissance” is misleading. The knowledge people had in antiquity didn’t die, so 1525 didn’t have to re-figure it out. People in 1525 understood the meaning of the Mysteries, myth, and religion in Antiquity; that knowledge and comprehension was kept fully alive during the Middle Ages. And I like the hypothesis that there were only 350 years instead of 1050 between 476 and “1525” which is therefore aka 825.

The culture of “1525” looks to me like it sat in the year 825, just a little bit after Antiquity. Does it look like the comprehension of the Mysteries died out in 476, was lost until 1525, and then the people in 1525 figured out the meaning of it? Evidently the people of 1525 were smart on this subject, and filled with understanding of the Mysteries and religious myth.

I cannot believe that understanding of the Mysteries and the esoteric initiation meaning of Christianity was lost from 476-1525 and then was figured out in full, again. Evidently comprehension of Mysteries and religious, mushroom-based myth was retained without a dip from Antiquity well into the early modern era, especially where there was hierarchical society and mushrooms and religion: those are the natural habitat of comprehension of the Mysteries, Esotericism, and religious myth.

As a “typical” member of late-Modern culture, it was a long haul for me to reach this state of fully blowing open the Mysteries and the Christian version of them. But it was so hard for me, for us, for me as a capable, well-equipped representative of my culture, to successfully decrypt Esotericism and the Mysteries and mystic religious mythic metaphor, because today’s OSC-based, egalitarian culture stands on opposite premises from that which begat and sustained such encrypted, ASC-based knowledge.


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5601 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 21/11/2011
Subject: Achilles’ Heel = unctrlble source of ctrl-thoughts/ctrl-power
When you take a defensive, untrusting, stance of enmity against the threatening source of your thoughts, you are bound to lose that contest, because of your Achilles’ Heel: the very source of your ability to take a stance against your source of thoughts, is a product of your source of thoughts, as if you are trying to shoot an enemy when the enemy has fully control over your weapons and can turn them against you.

The feared, unknown agent that you test, challenge, or distrust as threatening you is the uncontrollable source of your own control-thoughts and thus is in control of your control-power that you presume to wield against that unknown mysterious agent.

Achilles is dipped in non-mortality except for the heel he was suspended by: the source, the wellspring, of his thoughts, including his control-thoughts. Your mortal self is destined for overthrow because it is falsely premised on having control of its source of control-thoughts.


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5602 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 21/11/2011
Subject: Re: Maximally condensed summary of Transcendent Knowledge
Religious knowledge is the perceiving of the uncontrollable source of one’s thoughts, testing this dependency, and transforming one’s understanding of personal control.

Personal control is initially imagined as a single, independent center of control. During initiation, personal control is perceived as dependent on an uncontrollable, hidden source of thoughts, experienced as the unchangeable universe or an unknown agency. Personal control tries to control and defend against the revealed source of thoughts, demonstrating that personal control power is dependent on and vulnerable to the source of thoughts.

Personal control learns to trust the source of its thoughts. The mind discards its assumption that personal control controls the source of thoughts. Personal control becomes mentally integrated with the source of thoughts, and control stability is established, in a newly explicit, 2-centered configuration of control-power.

The easiest model of spacetime to organize thinking about personal control-power is that the person’s experiencing, including control-thoughts as a steering agent, is laid out as a worldline-path embedded in a changeless space-time block universe with time as a space-like dimension.

Religious initiation is the use of mushrooms to loosen cognitive functioning and make perceptible the dynamics of personal control cognition. This perception and loose cognition disengages the previous mental model and helps construct a revised mental model by subtracting, adding, and transforming ideas about control.

Myth, including Mystery Religions, is metaphorical description of the above. Figures in religious myth are not historical, but are personifications of the above.

Perceiving and understanding the 2-centered control-power relationship that propels the mind has been used as a political template for structuring society, to purportedly follow the divinely revealed pattern:
o A power hierarchy with some people standing over other people in a controller/controlled relationship, because each person contains a control hierarchy.
o An egalitarian democracy with each person on the same level, because each person contains the same relationship of the two aspects of control: personal control thinking and the source of thoughts.


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5603 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 21/11/2011
Subject: Re: Maximally condensed summary of Transcendent Knowledge
Innovations in this Condensed Summary of Transcendent Knowledge, or Abstract of the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence

Less reliance on metaphor. More direct and neutral.

I removed ‘levels’ and became more explicit, more direct: personal control, and the source of thoughts. ‘Levels’ is a metaphor and thus is indirect. ‘Centers’ of control is more neutral, closer to systems theory. Anyway instead of ‘levels’ or ‘centers’

‘Egoic’ and ‘transcendent’ are problematic. Before initiation, there is a certain version of egoic cognition and unperceived transcendent cognitive activity. During initiation, the transcendent source of thoughts is perceived, grappled with, and mentally modelled, along with cancelling some previous mental modelling of personal control power. After initiation, the … [aw, damn that Neil Peart, the Theorist trails 36 years behind the Poet — I just recognized the uncontrollable source of thoughts in “The Fountain”] , and after, different egoic cognition, and newly per…


“The key, the end, the answer, stripped of their disguise. I’ve reached a signpost. Now at last I fall before the Fountain of Lamneth. Many journeys end here, but the secret’s told the same.”


The Fountain

Look the mist is rising,
and the sun is peeking through
See the steps grow lighter
As I reach their final few

Hear the dancing waters
I must be drawing near.
Feel, my heart is pounding
with embattled hope and fear.

The key, the end, the answer
Stripped of their disguise
Still it’s all confusion
And tears spring to my eyes

Though I’ve reached a signpost
it’s really not the end
Like old Sol behind the mountain
I’ll be coming up again

Now at last I fall before
The Fountain of Lamneth
I thought I would be singing
But I’m tired, out of breath

Many journeys end here
But the secret’s told the same
Life is just the candle
And a dream must give it flame


The terms ‘egoic’ and ‘transcendent’ are problematic, ambiguous labels, given the following dynamics.

Before initiation:
Egoic model: independent autonomous self-control power
Transcendent model: no mental model. Unperceived transcendent cognitive activity.

During initiation:
Egoic model: modified. cancelling some aspects of the previous, egoic mental model of personal control power.
Transcendent model: uncontrollable source of thoughts indirectly but distinctly perceived and tested. Add mental model of it.

After initiation:
Egoic model: Delusion habit returns but loosely held, utilized as tool.
Transcendent model: uncontrollability of the source of thoughts is again not perceived. Retain and organize mental model of transcendent.


In loosecog, do you perceive the uncontrollable thought source? In a sense yes; no. You perceive the arising of thoughts without personal control power over that arising; you perceive the uncontrollability. The source itself is The Unknown God, the mysterious stranger.


Grappling with the Unknown God

KJV Genesis 32:

And Jacob was *left alone*; and there *wrestled* *a man* with him *until the breaking of the day*.
And when *he saw that he prevailed not* against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh;
and the hollow of Jacob’s *thigh was out of joint*, as he wrestled with him.
And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou *bless me*.

And he said unto him, What is thy name?
And he said, Jacob, *the supplanter*.
And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel, *contender with God*:
for as a prince *hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed*.

And Jacob asked him, and said, *Tell me, I pray thee, thy name*.
And he said, *Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name?*
And *he blessed him* there.
And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel:
for *I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved*.
And as *he passed over* Penuel *the sun rose upon him*, and *he halted upon his thigh*.


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5604 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 21/11/2011
Subject: Re: Maximally condensed summary of Transcendent Knowledge
Innovations, changes vs previous summaries:

o Used direct characterizations “personal control” and “the source of thoughts”, rather than indirect labels eg ‘egoic’, ‘transcendent’, or metaphorical terms ‘higher’, ‘lower’.

o Highlighted politics, and cogently

o Connected with Mithraism: torch up (add mental model) down (accordingly subtract mental model)

There’s too much innovation compared to the Abstract of my main article. I need to post a full-text commentary.

Weird, I wouldn’t say the core theory has changed since 1988 or 1997, but now much more mature, developed, broad, many points to choose from, many figures, many connections to evoke w/ various mythemes. Wasted few words on Metaphor and Ahistoricity; all the more radical for how little I say: it’s all figurative description for the above bombshell ideas, period.

I didn’t belabor heimarmene, but gave it its due nonetheless. I used the topic to keep the emphasis on the main point: control-power experiencing. I didn’t point out worldline = snake-shaped: the assignment statement dictates “no metaphor”.

Great allusion to sacred marriage, trust-relationship.

Surprised – I deleted “self-control seizure, panic”, even ‘instability’! ‘defend’, ‘vulnerable’, ‘stability’ are enough.

Impact strategy: be low-key and awesomely profound but provide just enough indication of the shock wave alarm, almost understated. Don’t sell it; let it sell itself.


Kicked b*tt on the heimarmene-dislike problem by leveraging unobjectionable gentle handling. Maybe I just need to deemph it by bracketing it as “auxiliary”. You got to have Cybernetics, Loosecog, Metaphor… but Heimarmene is really powerful, but on par with cyber revelation? I here framed Heimarmene in the main scenes of the film, but never the central ultimate focus, which is Cybernetics. Here, this summary fine-tunes the relationship between the 4 pillars and amount of attention.

Each — per my 1987 Domain Dynamics model — each main area of the Theory serves a unique kind of function. Cybernetics and Heimarmene are related, co-entailed perhaps, but not parallel, not “equal”.

I only claimed you might “experience … unchangeable universe” and “The easiest model of spacetime to organize thinking about personal control-power is … worldline-path embedded in a changeless space-time block universe” — light-touch involvement of the heavyweight topic of determinism. The issue, the transformation of personal control agency, isn’t determinism: it’s cybernetics.


Well-leveraged my call for focusing on visionary plants as making perceptible, specifically,

And I waved-off the entire nervous distraction of “we don’t know for sure the mixed wine” by just saying look, you guys can’t think straight because you’re worrying about details and blind to the forest. For Christ’s sake, just axiomatically declare “mushrooms”, and be done with it so we can think clearly! It’s what they should’ve been using, what I would use in their case, and the evidence supports it; we have no reason for this enfeebling hesitation. We’ve got way better things to worry about!

In 2112, we suggest the electric invention from 1943, and the priests retort “Yes we know, it’s nothing new, mushrooms — er guitar — is just a waste of time. We have no need for ancient ways, our world is doing fine. Just think about the average, what use have they for you? Forget about your silly whim — it doesn’t fit the plan.”


Focused more focus on contending against or testing the source of thoughts: the seeing, testing, sacrificing, marrying/pact sequence.


Nice length, long enough to have total scope and less ambiguity, long enough to fully violate strictures against revealing the mysteries.

Against Ruck and the Moderate Entheogenists, I barely focus on the plants themselves — it’s almost incidental; loosecog’s the thing but not even that; the thing is, what loosecog *shows* you – hint: it’s not plants, except the snaking vine of Dionysus, seeing which turns the king to stone.


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5605 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 21/11/2011
Subject: Re: Maximally condensed summary of Transcendent Knowledge
The Professor knew religion long ago young.

1960, 1973: Robert Graves writes 83 pages on mushrooms as the key to Greek myth and religious myth.

1975: Neil Peart writes Caress of Steel and 2112: “We have no need for ancient ways, it doesn’t fit the plan”
Group: egodeath Message: 5606 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 21/11/2011
Subject: Snake/krater/panther under bull/chariot,
A snake shape is underneath your personal control thinking. Heimarmene brings your worldline to the krater, which makes you perceive heimarmene

Krater = mushroom
Snake = your unchangeable preset worldline out of your control that secretly steers you along your path through life through changeless spacetime. Is there change with respect to time, in a sense, yes; no: does a vein in a block of marble change? Does the curve of a function graph (eg sine) change? In a sense, yes; no.

Panther drinks krater under Triumph chariot of steersman Dionysus carrying passive Ariadne
Snake drinks krater under bull in tauroctony
Snake under chariot in other mythart

If snake under = worldline, so panther.
Group: egodeath Message: 5607 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 21/11/2011
Subject: Re: Snake/krater/panther under bull/chariot,
Panther = pet cat = chase/hunt/kill = Actaeon as hunter myth = worldline path = sacrificial labyrinth = (ego)death by Fatedness

Antiquity liked the = sign

The 1993 cat of Dionysus that yawned between my profound mental relaxation and the divine realization of my vulnerability to my uncontrollable source of thoughts was again with me– in another of its lives — last night or this morning when I posted my nonmetaphorical 300-word rebalanced and expanded-scope summary of the CTET.


Theory Architecture including shell interface. Idea of ‘core’ (nonmetaph sys theory vs ‘application’ (history/metaphor) needs refinement: the deep core doesnt chg since Jan 11 88 but I admit that more connections or indexings are added. Does my Core theory chg from 1988 1993 1997 2001 2007 2011?(see Dates thread & 93= vulnerability&trust–>my ascension day). In a sense, yes; no.

Dont underest metaph; mapping Core to it feels like dev’ing the Core not merely the interface layer out to the jungle of overgrown brands of mythic-relying myth-dressed religion– This is why u get ‘perfected’ in one Mysteries brand then go thru another & another. It was satisfying to deepen the grasp.

All Mysteries brands show exact same Core, *the* Wisdom, Transcendent Knowledge, but they provide such a diff iface, like diff Rock festivals. Even do initns w 1 hierophant of Mithm, then start again w a diff hieroph of Mithm in diff Mithraeum, produces diff experience despite all relig brands of Eso’m, 10 diff brands of housechurch protoXy, brands of Jewish initns, Secret Societies, etc


Play-hunt w cat: its path looks like heimarmene-shaped inevitable zigzag closing in on the prey is you. Panther = powerful scaledup cat, same shape of its hunting-path, = labyrinth to Minotaur.

DUNAMIS = POWER = KUBERNETES = TAUROS = DRAKO =
HEIMARMENE APOCALYPSE = LABYRINTHOS = FATUM = MUKES = EGO’

Minotaur = Mithraic bull = shoulder muscle = Bull = power domesticated under ctrl. = our ability to control power, = steer power = wield cybernetic power = steering-power.

Who Steers The Steersman??

Who steers the bull of personal control-steering power?
Mithras perceives that you are SOL-
steered and that underneath you is the snake-shaped worldline-path rails which you are secretly — LIKE A SNAKE HIDDEN IN A COVERED BASKET lid apocalyptically blown up via my college electric – forced to steer along, to forced willingness to ingesting the MUKES KRATER OF DESTINY: I AM SOL the invincible and my bull is going off the rails on a crazy train tracks inevitably destined for trainwreck shipwreck the serpent-swallowed Jonah warns but unless you turn repent sacrifice your claim to power of laying the tracks yourself


Minotaur = overpowered ctrl-power in our mind, perceived by the Nectar Ambrosia of us non-mortals that has the ingredients list:
M., U., K., E., S.

Graves’ wine-holes today though are thought of as feeding the immortals buried there with the brand new traditional recipe of 1956, to mix modern Ambrosia from the secret ingredients
M., Y., C., O.


Having been programmed by Professor Daedalus, I reveal I was always determined to engineer the magic
DIAMOND HAMMER OF INTERPRETATION
by reconfiguring this morning’s Max-Condensed Theory Spec as the infinitely dense hard core
Hammer of the Athanatos:

MYTHOS = KUBERNETES DUNAMIS KAI HEIMARMENE KAI MUKES


Copyright 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5608 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 21/11/2011
Subject: Re: Snake/krater/panther under bull/chariot,
Snake under Michael: God has cybersteering control-power even over Heimarmene itself; our God is more powerful even than the Fates of the Demiurgic powers of this passing era

— MtA
Group: egodeath Message: 5609 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 22/11/2011
Subject: Pagan relig died bc Fate was rejected
Downfall of Pagan religion was its affirmation of heimarmene, this rescues my hated advocacy of heimarmene as heart of transcendent truth and revelation and the key to Antique religion. Xy (which is to say, Gnostic ultratranscendence) killed them by climbing over the head of the god of Fatedness. Luther Martin: Heimarmene was the Hellenistic religion and was used to excuse (Marcus Borg:) domination-hierarchy. Xy was all about superceding “Judaism” as proxy for Heimarmene-culture, w housechurch gospel of egalitarian interp of mycology and, transcending Heimarmene: task to construct Ptolemaic astral ascent mystic cosmgy by adding layers above serpent-wrapped fixed stars.

THE BIG ISSUES:
Heimarmene sucks power from demos to Caesar’s domination hierarchy. F heimarmene and F domination hierarchy and all pagan religion is ruined shot through with these: rid us of such “religio” of evil: we reject it and affirm the unknown God above demiurgic heimarmene and reject domination hierarchy for egalitarian democracy. HEIMARMENE IS POLITICAL


Copyright Michael. Rights over that revealed information are reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5610 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 22/11/2011
Subject: One-foot limping king lost sandal
One-foot limping king lost sandal
Person walks along fated hiemarmene-path by combined power of personal control power (impot/illus) and the veiled uncontrollable Source Of Control-Steering Thought. The worldline snake hidden in the basket is the god that secretly controls and steers and gives you your cybernetic steersman-agency power

My power to walk with my legs along my Fate-governed worldline is an asymmetical system of 2 components, 1 w pwr over the other.

Hokie pokie of John Rush’s Christ icons explained:

One foot that propels me along my worldline = personal ctrl pwr
One foot is the unctrlble Source of my Thots particly ctrl-thots


Copyright 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5611 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 22/11/2011
Subject: Re: One-foot limping king lost sandal
WTF?! OMG what a POS video game, I can’t believe it– IT’S ON RAILS! I’m driving along on my ride, next to the vine yard, and then figured out that I was unable to turn either to the left or to the right. All the moves I make are given to me beyond my control, under the covers! What a disappointment: I assumed that this game would give me the freedom to move around freely through this virtual world. I want a better engineered game.
Group: egodeath Message: 5612 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 22/11/2011
Subject: Psyche = penetrated receptacle female thought-receiver
Contents:
Why the psyche is Female, receptacle, concave, womb.
Hellenism worshipped domination-power.
Why women created Christian Mystery Religion.
Why it was more popular than Pagan Religion.
Are Moderns the only ones who didn’t (until now) understand this “language”?

___________________________________

Why the psyche is Female, receptacle, concave, womb

Serpent = spear into body = heimarmene = uncontrollable source of your thoughts = phallus of God = inserter of thoughts = male = that which overpowers you.

Personal control agency = passive = concave = cave = hole in side = receptacle = cup = womb = krater = that which thoughts are inserted into = female = the you that is overpowered = wound in Mithras’ bull = bull bowl-oriented crescent moon = bowl-shaped horns.


All glory goes to Controller X, the unknowable, unseen, uncontrollable fountainhead of our thoughts, including our control-thoughts! The universal god worshipped is the phallic Fountain of Cybernetics which, when made perceptible by loose cognition, makes us pregnant with Transcendent Knowledge. A transcendent part of what I am is Controller X; I am Controller X.


The wound willingly permitted in Jesus’ side, made by Jupiter/Eagle/Caesar, is like our mind’s passive receiver of control-thoughts that are injected by God, and the seeing of that, particularly the mushroom-enabled perceiving of thoughts that are specifically about the source and foundation of self-control power, and personal control’s inability to control such thoughts, and how trying to test, judge, and resist thoughts, steer away from such thoughts, leads inevitably to self-control seizure, panic, loss of control, doom, disaster, defeat.

So this wounding, this testing, this perceived and understood penetration of God into our mental thought-source, results in the discarding of old ideas about personal control agency, and gaining new areas of thought about identity, agency, and control – as well as preservation and transformation of some aspects of control-thinking.

The mental model of control agency involves a subtract, add, and transform, in a Conceptual Revolution. The ego-killing wounding and invasive forced penetration also gives rise to new life, cleansing, regeneration, purification: Alchemy.


Mary, mother of Jesus, is you, rap’d in your mind’s cup, perceiving that you are receiving your control-thoughts from the finger of God, the Dove that’s a member of God’s body, that does the two-part impregnation of the divine new self-concept and transcendent-self awareness in your mind: the Dove is new perception ability in conjunction with the ever-ongoing insertion of thoughts into your mind upstream from your will; creating your will, injecting himself into your thought-receptacle whether you are willing or not, against your will, overpowering your will, as the very source of your will (given that your movements of will are themselves thoughts, or mental constructs, forced upon you, regardless of whether you are willing or unwilling).

The Dove as the moment of fertilizing climax, refers to not the always-the-case injecting of thoughts into you, but rather, the specific receiving of thoughts (understanding, idea, mental construct) specifically about the uncontrollable source of your control-power. The Dove is the ability to watch and perceive thoughts at their source in your mind, in conjunction with receiving the specific thoughts that demonstrate your helpless vulnerability and overpoweredness.

Jupiter sends down his Eagle to assault and rapeture you and kill you and humiliate you like a mere woman or slave, to mock and jeer your pathetic state, putting you in your place. It’s enough to give a woman pause: are we to respond to this by worship and praise? When the thereby-justified domination-hierarchy makes life hell for 90% of the population? What bizarre upside-down values are these?

If *this* is what “glorious” ‘religio’ and entheogenic banqueting must be taken to be about — as they asked again in 1630 — perhaps we’d have a very good chance of being better off without it. But we can give it one chance: it’s do or die for Hellenistic religion at this point: either you adapt to the demands and needs of the 90% on the bottom of the pyramid, or else, you die: we refuse to propagate the meme of “worship that which abuses you”.

The Last Chance for Hellenistic religion to redeem itself is to find a positive, healthy expression of altered-state revelation of noncontrol and heimarmene, and a vision of something better, higher than heimarmene, and use such a variant strain of Mystery Religion initiation and Banqueting to construct a just, humane, egalitarian arrangement of society.

Since Jews aren’t a domination hierarchy, and since they rebelled successfully for a moment against Roman Empire and since they refused to assimilate, we can commandeer and repurpose their resources for a Jewish-themed version of the Hellenistic uber-religion of Heimarmene-and-cyberpower worship, but with several mutations to render the religio meme acceptable:
o A loving god (JHVH, not Jupiter)
o A peaceful bird (Dove, not Eagle)
o A *suffering* god-given ruler (Jesus, not Caesar)
o A more positive coitus/coupling theme (love, not violent assault).


Socrates corrupting the youth: he taught them that the mind has a female cup that receives thoughts from the uncontrollable source of thoughts. That personal responsibility is illusory in a profound sense. That transcendent Heimarmene has absolute power over us. That sheer power, not moral agency, is real (in a profound sense). Did he also teach them that Heimarmene (-interpretation) is Political (which is the seed idea of Christianity)?


I don’t mean to overly equate our noncontrol with heimarmene, but never did two distinct ideas fit together so well, as to form the religion of the overpowering of personal control power by the uncontrollable source of thoughts, hand-in-hand with Heimarmene.

When I determined to crack the code of Mithraism, I didn’t expect to find a shocking worship of the idea of overpowering, a religious glorification of the sheer forceful aspect of cybernetic control power. “You dominate and overpower me, therefore of course my natural response, as anyone’s would be, is to worship you.” The idea goes perfectly against the direction of late-Modern era thinking, where domination and oppression and power are demonized.


My head officially exploded today, and I got it on tape, which I would like to transcribe and post, and upload as audio. My cup overfloweth: I am having too many good ideas too fast to post, so they are piling up on my voice recorder and text files. I have written valuable drafts I might overlook and not post. I’m the dumb jackpot winner watching the coins pile out in an endless torrent.


It is so obvious, these aspects of mystic mythic metaphor encoding, I am embarrassed that all those professors out there who figured this out but are afraid like Robert Graves and self-censor like he wrote that he did, to protect his sales.

Loudmouth ignoramuses who haven’t done their homework are loved by publishers and given every opportunity and encouragement to publish: Andy Letcher, I wave my finger at you, shameful failure of independent, sound thinking. But I also see why your shameful, harmful pseudo-scholarship was thereby rushed eagerly into print by the Prohibition-complicit publishing industry, and was able to deliver a few bits of helpful information to the world, lurking in your pile of superficial non-research.

Anyone who figures out truth is censored — coerced to censor themselves, and censored by the publishing industry. The truth is only permitted to slip through in metaphor encoding in Acid Rock lyrics. “Yes we know, it’s nothing new, it’s just a waste of time. It doesn’t fit the plan.” I am anything but the first person to figure out this metaphor.

Those of you ahead of me like Neil Peart in many ways, are not so much waiting in anticipation for me to inform them of this meaning I’m about to write — they already figured out the meaning (one may speculate and imagine). They are actually waiting for me to figure out the “kind of obvious and simple” truth which they already figured out, which every two-bit Esotericist and mystic understood until perhaps 1700.

It’s easier to state the brief period and fraction of culture where this was *not* common knowledge in Western history. In my paranoia, I fear I am the last one in history who hadn’t yet figured it out. I feel more like a dunce than a genius: I am the sharpest knife in a drawer of completely dull knives. This revelation I’ll tell you is only news to us, a few people in the late-Modern era. We are mystic-metaphorical dunces.

I was so smart, I figured out afresh, anew, from zero, with no help from the dunces around me, the decoding, which all other groups (I paranoiacally fear) quite evidently had an easy, full comprehension of. In this subject, we Moderns are complete imbeciles and fools, and the early Moderns are geniuses compared to us: even their pitchfork-armed farmers understood this. It was obvious to them. It was passed on to them.

I am the smartest person in the late-Modern era but I am embarrassed on all our behalf… and there might be many others who figured out this obvious metaphor-decoding in the past 100 years (the max-dark era regarding this subject). My achievement is towering yet embarrassingly modest compared to our previous culture, who routinely understood this. I have, however, explicitly expressed this knowledge.

It’s a great achievement, mitigated by our being tardy in cracking the code *and* writing about it publically rather than self-censoring.

Those who (perhaps) already figured this out are cheering not my *discovery* of the ideas, which they privately held already (one may wonder and suppose), but rather, my apt *expression* of the ideas — mapping non-metaphorical, precisely defined explanatory Theory components to metaphors, which are inherently an imperfect match; a metaphor says “A is partly isomorphic with B.”


Soldiers’ Mithraism was worship of overpowering. They made a religion of worshipping overpowering. The uncontrollable source of thoughts is revealed to have been injecting its payload into you your whole life, whether you are unaware of willing or unwilling. Before initiation, you couldn’t perceive that the phallus of God was being inserted into your cup in your mind, where God’s fountain comes into your mind. During initiation, you gained perception that the divine was inserting his finger into your cup.

Doubting Thomas wouldn’t Believe until he put his finger in the hole in the side. AT LAST!!! I HAVE FIGURED OUT THE SPEAR IN THE SIDE. Finally; Jesus! Duh! Countless jeer and laugh at me for being so tardy in figuring out what was obvious common knowledge. (Carl Ruck et al say it’s the center of the underside of an Amanita cap, as the target meaning — go laugh and jeer at their cluelessness, not mine!)

Rod = staff = thyrsus = phallus = Fate’s or God’s uncontrollable thought-injector imposed into the heart of our mind.

We are accustomed to thinking about ‘awareness’ in the mind, but we are less accustomed to thinking about the ‘source of thoughts’. Yet these two are complementary modules in the most elementary diagram of the mind and self-control. That’s one profitable mapping of the up/down torchbearers: the Up torch makes ‘awareness’ visible, and the Down torch makes the ‘source of thoughts’ visible (on the receiving, incoming side; not the ever-dark, ever-unperceivable side — the arm of JHVH is seen, but nothing else).

The cup, the receptacle, the hole, the cave, the female opening: is the veiled place in our personal control thinking, where thoughts originate; where the Trojan horse is delivered to, where the spear of heimarmene penetrates into us, where the uncontrollable source of thoughts is, inserting our control-thoughts into us.

The idea of heimarmene is supremely revered and useful and powerful because it emphasizes our cybernetic powerlessness, which is the goal of religion. Determinism is extremely popular, commonly found in some 15 fields (such as Philosophy, Theology, Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science, and Analytical Philosophy). Yet determinism is despised.

Why is Determinism a controversial doctrine? Determinism is a huge affront to our claim to egoic power — and that’s what religion is all about: taking that claim down. We recoil and bristle against the doctrine of Determinism, like the n*ked guy apprehending the Red Star of overpowering Fatedness on the 2112 album.

God as uncontrollable thought source injecting himself into you, and heimarmene portraying you as a helpless puppet farcically pretending to move itself freely along its fixed track through spacetime, like a vein in a block of marble claiming that since it “changes” from one part of the block to another, it is now going to leap out of the marble and dance around and crown itself king.

The propositions of Heimarmene and noncontrol couldn’t possibly be any more offensive to the egoic claim to wield a certain profound conception of autonomous power.

Now my theory will tell all about heimarmene: why it was worshipped, why it is a powerful, overpowering idea, why it is despised, why Gnostics demonized it, why people engineered a way for religion to transcend heimarmene, why the religion that made that move, Gnosticism and Christianity, was popular and caused the unpopularity and collapse of the single religion of Hellenistic world, which was, the worship of heimarmene.

The Hellenistic uber-religion of Heimarmene-worship was disliked in Antiquity because it harshly mocked egoic power — it was Triumphalist over personal control power — and because it was abused to excuse domination-hierarchy as the social-political arrangement “given by the gods and revealed in the Mysteries”. As if what’s revealed in the mystic state is the gods-given, Fated-mandated domination hierarchy arrangement of society, per Roman Imperial Theology propaganda.

Jesus Mysteries asked “Were ancients happy with Mystery Religions?” That is a malformed question. The correct question is: “Which ancients were happy with Mystery Religions?” Answer: Top 10% of the domination hierarchy pyramid, not the bottom 90%.


It’s funny that as much as soldiers worshipped overpowering, they put on wedding dresses and considered themselves (or their normally perceptible mental self as control executor) to be female, in the religious department; the mind has a cup where its thoughts are inserted by the finger of Sol. The soldier’s higher, dominant — but not normally perceptible — self-identity was male, Sol, Mithras.


I continue to suspect that despite Modern scholar’s literalism, the Maenads are men and women, focusing on the mind as a passive receptacle of thoughts injected by the penetrative member of Dionysus, the uncontrollable, normally hidden, source of our thoughts, secret pilot and steersman of our souls, governor of the steering wheel which is us.

We thought we were driving the car, but it’s revealed to us now that ours is merely a toy steering wheel, as Dionysus proves to us by steering the car straight at a tree, the Angel of Death, despite our efforts to steer aside from the threat that inseminates Belief into us while we test the fact of the matter: as personal control agents, do we or do we not have practical useful control over the source of our thoughts? If not, can we trust Agent X, or JHVH, which is the unknown source of our thoughts? Do we have a choice? No.

Are we justified in trusting something we don’t know anything about except that it is the source of our thoughts we depend on? Yes; it got us here; it is the foundation of our own personal thinking, crazy but true; truth is stranger than fiction; it takes some ambitiously strange fiction to match the strangeness of the relationship of local egoic personal control agency and the Mystery of the uncontrollable and imperceptible source of our thoughts.

Is Heimarmene or the Fates trustworthy? Venerable? Worthy of worship? Worthy of marrying, of love, of affection? Ask Job.


Perhaps we should take a stance of distrust and take up arms in paranoia against the source of our own thoughts — good idea? Mind the self-control seizure.

And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand.


— Controller X, via the Communicator


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5613 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 23/11/2011
Subject: Amanita = King of Enth metaph; psil = superior fx
In the otherworld realm of mythic metaphor, Amanita is the undisputed King of the Fungi, even King of the Entheogens, but psil mshr are more effective, ergonomic, popular in mixed wine practical use. Metaphor is often visual, and Amanita is much more visual than psil. Recycling might apply to either. I consider Amanita to be mainly a representative of the actual use of psil. To show Aman in myth is to indicate the use of psil.


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5614 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 23/11/2011
Subject: ‘entheogens’ = noncontrol-revealers, anti-cyberdelics
Entheogens are more precisely, relevantly, termed as Noncontrol-Revealers. The latter phrase speaks from POV of local personal control agency, which is to say, POV of the central processing executor, Sol’s consort Luna, the egoic mind (which is, during initiation, subtly and profoundly reformed/transformed/exorcised/purified).


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5615 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 23/11/2011
Subject: thoughtsource/thotreceiver before/during/after initiation
I can further clarify the non-metaphorical Core theory to usefully define the mental model of thoughtsource/thotreceiver before/during after initiation. See summary in very recent post.

You are the creator. And you are a creature. As the creator, you control your mind’s source of thoughts. As a creature, you don’t control your mind’s source of thoughts. But better terms are needed for your transpersonal identity (it forces thoughts into the mind; it is “the phallus of God”), and your personal identity (it helplessly passively receives thoughts from God and executes them obediently, mechanically, automatically; it is “the consort of God”).


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5616 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 23/11/2011
Subject: Refactoring the Core theory per mythic metaphors
My Core theory needs fixed terminology that cleanly maps to these central primary myth-expressed referents/components, without “analogy leakage” as I’ve suffered today since the Great Collapse of the Incomprehension, the Great Falling of the Remaining Scales from my Eyes. My sight has been cleared fully, and I see that my core theory terminology and modularity, object design, design patterns, is not quite rising up to serving the purpose of mapping myth, now that the latter language is fully understood and decrypted, the code cracked. A bit of design refactoring is needed:

Break out clearly, discussion of mental models of personal control 1) before, during, and after initiation, specifically 2) in terms of “male” source of thoughts, and “female” receiving and executing thoughts using the reformed egoic sense of being a control-agent moving itself through spacetime under its own power. The concepts ‘egoic’ and ‘transcendent’ require too much (ie an unnecessary amount of) freeform verbiage to express these potentially cleanly cogently expressible ideas; in some sense, myth is more cogent than my 1997-era structuring of the Core theory.

This morning, I posted a summary of this “before/during/after” and “thoughtsource/thotreceiver” sequence. In short, the “refactoring” needed, is to fold these ideas back into the various main few topics of my Theory, enabling a more condensed, clear, powerful expression of my theory, similar to my “maxly condensed summary of the theory” I posted this morning, which I’m pleased with, and does have these new handles, this new object-design refactoring into before/during/after,

Now that I have a crystal clear grasp of the helpful useful tangible vivid metaphors, I’m seeing some weakness, some terminology holes, some needed concept-handles/names, that are better… that are non-metaphorical, that are unambiguous, and …

Now I myself need a glossary for myself, and diagrams, to finalize better terminology, that makes the core theory clearer and more systematically expressed/mapped/described in a way that enables terser, less ambig, more precise, *routine* terminology/communication — to ensure we are all on the same page, to disambiguate, and, to make it easier to map to the wise metphor mythemes we inherited, for greater and more efficient, compact, unambiguous explanatory power: Paul Thagard’s Pri3 criter for good theory: it must map to previous theories.

Pri1: conceptual coherence: the Core was finished, *in a sense*, the mmoment I created it 1/11/88. But, generally along the lines of Thagard, the Core still needed deepening and what I’m fiding undeniably is… until now, I used to think that I developed the Core, locked it down upon uploading to PrinCyb ~1/1/97, and then I added sep. extension covering the mapping to history&metaphor.

In mapping myth to the Core theory, I discovered that the *expression* of the core, the *format* of it, has room for improvement — *not* that I’m revising the actual axioms or content that define the core; but, that I’m changing, improving substantially, the *expression* or “embodiment” of the core — the word “packaging”, I long used, gives too superficial an impression. Myths are quite good at talking about the most interesting ideas, though not explicitly; in some cases, the referents of mythemes are more relevant than the nearest-equivalent concepts in my 1997 Core theory or 2005 theory-specification of the Core + metaphor-extension.

“Packaging” the core can deeply affect the wording I use to express the axioms, the terminology usage, the phrases, and eg I had as fundamental terms, or concept-bag handles, “egoic” and “transcendent”, but I ended up overloading those to the point where I myself hardly know what those terms are supposed to mean anymore. They are ancient going back to year 1, 1986, if not Year 0, 1985.

‘egoic’ used to mean “deluded about control; having self-frustrating, ineffective self-control”
‘transcendent’ used to mean “enlightened about control; having non-self-frustrating control”

That’s a problematic and simplistic target scheme. ‘egoic’ and ‘transcendent’ meant alot before the Core discovery of 1/88. And I got much mileage out of them through the end of the Core work in 1997, and through the end of the History/Metaphor extension in 2007.

But with my latest, total breakthrough of metaphor that was enabled by the Nuke of radical maximal extremist fundamentalist purist hard-core dogmatic commitment to the Diamond Hammer of Interpretation (myth describes heimarmene, cybernetics-power, and mshr; mythos = heimarmene, kubernetes dunamis, kai mukes), by becoming infinitely narrow-minded, I fully deciphered and learned the native language of myth, and tranalated and read it at lenght.

I found that my language terminology was inadequate, ie wasn’t tuned and divided well enough, fittingly enough, to smash and reduce all myth cleanly into my own conceptual framework’s conceptual slots.

Translating myth to non-metaphor scientific systems theory, domain-specific style of explanatory conceptual framework, taught me how to be a better myth-free, non-metaphorical theorist, as if defining a better universal virtual-machine language to which all programming languages can be translated. Every breakthrough in mapping myth reflects back causing some improvement refactoring of the Core theory to provide a superior direct way of expressing what the myths are very relevantly describing. The Poet has some advantages over the Theorist, tho v.v.

Just as it doesn’t occur to other writers to even *consider* heimarmene and cybernetics as the ultimate master referent of myth, and many would never even *think* of mshr as a key role for myth, either; similarly, a modern determinist or systems theorist, it might not even occur to them to arrange their model in a way that well matches the male and female conjoinment and distinction, though in practice, during initiation, such a modelling-choice, a design-choice of expression of dynamics of thinking and control in the mind, turns out to be a more powerful design than the modern non-metaphorical theorist would think of – tho note the common use of ‘male’ and ‘female’ in plugs and sockets for vine-shaped wires carrying information, thoughts.

Playing my occult album DoaM, I put the needle in the groove, and heard metaphors unfold profundity, freedom problematized, control lost, becoming no one. It behooves the metaphor-free theorist to follow the lead of metaphors, and design his non-metaphor model and terminology such that they map well to metaphor, because that metaphor was freely chosen in the jungle of overgrowth, to convey the most pregnant, suggestive, *relevant* experiences. Thus I gain the best of both worlds: the best referent ideas and best implicit models from mythic metaphor, and, the most optimally designed non-metaphor explicit model.

By adjusting, reconfiguring, the non-metaphor-origated, engineering-originated model, for ease of mapping ot metaphor, the nonmetaphor model gains the best fruit, the best underlying referent ideas, from the Great Wise myth-spinners. Do not underestimate the power of metaphor, even as the ultimate non-metaphor, explicit Theory surpasses them.


I never thought that the core theory’s “inner packaging” would need to benefit by being taught by the analogy-leakage jungle of mythic metaphor, but some of the target components that are meant by mythemes are not wrapped suitably, not encapsulated… I find that the analogy-leakage jungle of mythic metaphor is requiring me to improve the, refactor my code, refactor my core theory! Not changing my axioms; that is, not correcting errors, but improving the arrangement, just like Newton and Liebniz both invented “the calculus” but Newton’s expression of it — the “inner packaging” (you can’t call it the mere “surface”, the mere API…)

You can have a code base that works, that’s not broken, and yet that needs improvement for increased practical power. I always thought that “packaging” the Theory was “mere surface styling”, but that idea of a separate core and surface expression seems misleading: what’s needed is more like a deeper refactoring. My Theory is a tremendous success… but there’s room for improvement in the structuring within it. There Comes A Time when a code base calls out for refactoring.

I’m in the position as if Liebniz created his calculus, then improved the arrangement of it, the internal expression of it, to produce Newton’s superior configuration of the same technology — the two presentations, arrangements, are mathetically equivalent, yet Newton’s is more useful and thus *practically* has greater power, in a sense. Newton’s is not truer than Liebniz, and in a sense they have the same explanatory power, but in a practical, applied sense, and in terms of visualization and comprehensibility, Newton’s arrangement of the calculus is more powerful, and elegant, than Liebniz’s.


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5617 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 23/11/2011
Subject: Prometheus stole firre, chained, eagle eats liver forever
Prometheus is a Titan — an experienced, very knowledgabel initiate on brink of enl.

He stole fire (Ambrosia recipe M., U., K., E., S.) from the gods [mshr]

The ambrosia made him immortal [no further ego-death after series of initiations completed]

As punishment, he was chained, bound to the rock [embedded in the frozen spacetime block] forever [sense of timelessness].

Purpose: to bring Ambrosia and its resulting athantos (non-dying) to mankind.

The eagle of Zeus ate his liver every day. Beak into wound = God’s phall inserted into mind’s receptacle to insert our thoughts, as the usually non-perceivable (veiled, lid-covered) source of our thoughts, particularly our control-thoughts, inserted into our personal control functioning (local, personal, executor functioning; central processing unit, control unit).

Heracles/Hercules kills the eagle and frees Prometheus.

Liver is the organ of heimarmene, prediction, will; the ancient equivalent of modern “in my heart & soul”.

Prometheus challenged Zeus’ omnipotence

During a sacrificial meal [mshr, egodeath] marking the “settling of accounts” between mortals [not ego-died via mukes yet] and immortals [those who underst TK/metaph/egodeath], Prometheus played a trick against Zeus, making it only *look* like the best part of the sacrificed animal is given to the gods [sacrif = egodeath, discarding seizure-inducing false claim by personal executor functioning, a claim to power over our source of thoughts], but the worthless portion was given to the gods instead [the useless, confused portion of deluded egoic freewill thinking].

That angered Zeus, which is the whole reason why fire [mukes, Ambrosia of egodeath/rebirth] was hidden from man in the first place (cmp JHVH kicking Adam/Eve out of paradise, requiring mycojesus to give mycoblood of non-dying back to us).


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5618 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 23/11/2011
Subject: Myth as a riddling Sphinx
If you answer wrong you die? If you answer successfully you die, egodeath.

Figuratively, the Q is “What walks 4, 2, 3 legs: baby adult elder”

But a truer metaphor q is: “What walks on 4, 2, then 1 1/2 legs?” A: The initiate, who walks themselves propelling themselves along their worldvine-path by using the transcendent control-power forced upon them (the male component of the psyche: source/giver of thoughts into mind; wand; phall; lingham), and their ego-dead executor functioning (the female component of the psyche: receiver/receptacle and processor of thoughts; cup; yoni).


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5619 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 23/11/2011
Subject: Re: Graves-Wasson enth theory 1960, Hall 1925, S. 1845
If you drink the blended mixture in this recipe, it will make you immortal:

Mercury, Umbrella, Schlitz, Heineken, Rust, Ontology, Oboe, Manikin
Group: egodeath Message: 5620 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 23/11/2011
Subject: The Son of Man, given/destined for sacrifice so eter life/forgv sins
Our youthful self = our child = our son, is our initial self-concept as pseudo-autonomous, pseudo-independent control-agency, able to steer the future and our thoughts one way or the other.
During initiation, that self-concept is repudiated and judged by testing and trial to be false.

We cast out and repudiate that self-concept in order to take into account our executive agency’s inability to control the source of its thoughts, particularly including control-thoughts.

The symbol of Jesus represents each person’s (each man’s) youthful self-concept, or son who is destined and identified for sacrifice. The pre-initiation youth-self of any man, the ‘son’ of each person.


eternal life = imperishable, a-thanatos, non-mortal, not subject to ego-death.

forgiveness/cancellations of sins: Heimarmene cancels moral culpability. (heim = double-predestination, fatedness, determinism, preexisting or preset block universe).

You die the egodeath, and thereby become non-dying, immortal. Gain non-dying life by dying. Every noninitite is accursed, destined to be punished by death, for their moral sin, their moral sin, of thinking of themselves as an autonomous moral agent. You are guilty of having the audacity to think of yourself as a morally culpable and therefore power-wielding freewill agent; you are punished for your guiltiness by being bound to spacetime and killed by ego-death; doing so purifies you of your error and pollution and guilt, and you gain non-dying, everlasting life, imperishability.


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5621 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 23/11/2011
Subject: fountain in a cave
Describe the exact seizure thoughts coming from the lit-up fountain. block univ diagr showing worldline thread, provide sep zoom diagrams of before, during, after initn-seq.

convention: discuss “initiation” as if a single 6-hour session is sufficient, rather than seq for deepening.

torch = light-up, lit-up

The temple of Mithras is a cave, containing a fountain. Sol is the creator of the world. Mithras is associated with the sign of Aries and the planet Mars (male; unseen uncontrollable-by-executor thoughts-source). The bull is associated with Venus (female; thoughts-receptacle; command-instructions receptacle).


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5622 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 23/11/2011
Subject: Mythic metaphor code fully cracked
At the end of time (which is today, November 22, 2011), all mysteries are unveiled, all wisdom is revealed.


The entire language of myth has fully opened, more than in 2001-2007 — continuing same vein as 2007, but I only had a view through the crack then, now it’s blown all the way open — the turning point was when I got radicalized in reaction to Rinella’s taking the moderate enthoegen theory too far to conversative, and he raised question of the political downsides of mshr mysteries, that harmed the demos.

Actually, the contention in Athens was about the political downside & abuse of the revealed secret of non-kubernetes, and Heimarmene-dunamis, actually, more specifically than Rinella’s too-vague “mshr use”.

I told-off the entheogenist for being weak-minded and complicit in Prohibition, in the bunk story the Establishment is coercing their weak, compromised minds into caving into. We must think as an independent press! Quit giving an *inch* to the Establishment! Do the radical opposite of the view they advocate. Purely and totally ignore them. Refuse to be the slightest bit influence by the Establishment view, that creeps and infests the minds of the purportedly leading-edge scholars. Weed out that confused, inquisitional thinking from your mind.

Be a pure, unchained, radical, independent thinker: follow venerable manly Edwin Johnson: per Robert Price: How tragic; we can no longer take the received views for granted; we have to actually think, now.

Set up an echo chamber — that’s how I achieved my great breakthrough Sep-Nov 2011: by making my thinking as simple and purely extreme as possible, hammering repeatedly in my echo chamber, screaming louder to drown out the voices of the Establishment contaminating my thinking, covertly inserted into my brain by remote control — and, chillingly, taking over Ruck’s brain, too, making him part of the Establishment Borg, so that we get the most sinister: revolutionary rebellion co-opted by the Establishment, complicit, coerced.

The Establishment has infiltrated the minds of Rinella and Ruck, to corrupt their would-be “alternative” views. Mother Jones has been bought out by Mega News Corp. Books by Andy Letcher rushed out by big-name Establishment presses, making loud-sounding arguments about nothing in particular, a shell game, in which we nod our heads in dizzied consent that this constitutes an argument:

“The mshr on the ch door is evidence that there’s no hidden mshr in Christian art. Therefore I have shown there’s no evid for mshr in relig, such use is late 20th C only.”

Yes Letcher your logic is dizzying, I give in! You are right (in your theory and position, whatever it is, that shifts on every other page, as needed, to give the right surface impression of something having been proved). Any other views, all of them are wrong, whatever they are. His book has all the logical structure of a pile of oatmeal.

I haven’t seen argumentation with that level of soundness since I tore Wasson to shreds leaving nothing standing, regarding Plaincourault and related proxy issue of the supposed nonuse of mshr throughout Xn history, in Our religion. When Hoffman was done with the temple of Wasson, not one stone was left standing on the other. Not to mention contributions from Irvin and Letcher toward same. Wasson is forced to start from scratch with a *genuine* investigation of these Christian history questions this time.

Ruck does well so far as he goes, in sticking to his guns even more, when the Establishment-hypnotized know-nothings say “Ruck can’t be right, because he sees mushrooms all throughout myth.” That’s the same argument as I totally demolished from Wasson/Panofsky: “Plaincourault fresco cannot be mshr, b/c there are hundreds of what the art historians call ‘mshr trees’ known in art.”

That’s a kind of begging the question; of assuming that which is to be proved, with the superficial air, tone, and style of writing that tries to covertly mask-over that bunk move (Wasson/Panofsky *assumes* as an uncrit presupp that m-trees can’t repr msh, and then uses that assumpt *as if a concl of considered thinking*, to argue that this Plainc instance must “therefore” not repr mshr. Just slather-on proving-sounding, argumentation-sounding, logic-sounding words, on top of a total non-argument.

To boot, in addn, Wasson puts forth a crass brazen Argument From Authority: “The art authorities are familiar with these m-trees and they know that these m-trees don’t repr msh.” That statement *is* the argument; there is no reasoned argument behind, under, prior to, supporting that statement; we are supposed to gullibly *imagine* such. How weak are our minds?!

Such was my hue & cry leading to my great complete breakthrough: the collapse and fall of the Myth Empire by the Diamond Hammer of Interpretation (“myth means cyb, heim, & mshr”). I suppose I got good at myth interp as cyb/heim/mshr by 2007 (proved by posts & main artic) — but this lang interp skill is a matter of degree of fluency, and I got way more fluent, literate, skilled, clear on the grammar of myth, along w/ tightening my theory-interp/technique a la defining tinier, denser, simpler, more rigid and hard-*ssed, toughened, more firmly *committed*, zealous, …

I am known on the Web as “the Enth Fundamenist”, take that to heart, own that, yes, we need to rise up to be that! We must quit failing to be fundamentalists, radicals, purists, extremists — then we can as I have now fully proved break through into coherence and truth and remove the worm of Establishment programming, virus contaminating our thoughts, programmed by the Demiurge and his rulers of this passing age. Diamond Hammer of Interp: mythos = kubernetes’, heimarmene dunamis, kai mukes. Including narrowing vague “enth’s/psyched’s” to “mshr, which make the mind perceive the unctrlbl [by executor mind] src of thots”.

The God part of the brain, the unknown Controller X, *can* control my thoughts (directly or as creator/programmer of my frozen worldine instruction-thread), but me/mind as local executor, control unit, cannot, can only *receive* and mechanically *read and process* the command-instructions that Controller X, via his Heimarmene-vine instruction-thread, forcibly injects and transmits into my mind, thus remotely controlling my thoughts, making me will to do things, by “his” command.

I am Controller X, and so I control and program everything that happens in the world; Controller X is me; I am transpersonal (you are deluded and crazy). I thus insert my own commands into my mind, forcing myself to will things, indepdendently of my will. I am the executor, the helpless reactive mechanical vessel who God forces command-thoughts into. I am Sol, the totally overpowering Programmer, the source of all of everyone’s thoughts.

I am Luna, the Executor, in whom Sol inserts thoughts. I am Mithras, who is forced to perceive the fountain gushing fecund thoughts into the loosened mind. I am the bull, discarded, dualistic, egoic thinking, and I control the power of freewill. I am the serpent of hiemarmene, inevitably led to drink the mshr blood from the receptive vessel forcefully filled with transcendent thoughts, that is neither bone, nor metal, nor wood. I am a program er. Metaprogramming is forced upon the steersman, who is made, his will is coerced and turned against itself, by entities he is forced to believe in.


I am Controller X: I force my control-thoughts into my mind against its will, coercing the will, injecting my payload of control-overriding software into the helpless obedient vessel executor control unit, weak, obedient, female telepresence hardware dancing at my remote command.


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5623 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 23/11/2011
Subject: thread of computer instructions/commands
Map Core theory to Sol/Luna, male/female, and to cog sci and comp sci. Does Core theory per 97 explicitly or equivalently have concept of mind’s v; cup; place in diagram where cmd-thoughts are recvd? What’s the closest to that conceptual arrangement/internal packaging, within the Core theory?

mshr loosen cognitive functioning and makes the mind perceive thoughts arising independently from personal control power that the personal mind wields. This is like a fountain in a cave, where a person lives, as a control agent, but a control agent that has no freedom, is sheerly a reactive mechanism, and receives commands, like a program receives machine-language instructions from the call stack or stored program and deterministically, as a network of latching switches (relays), is made to execute the instructions.

The instructions that are imposed into the mind (into the executive subsystem) are laid out along the worldline-path suspended and embedded in changeless spacetime.


The really existing higher you. The commander — or, the sequence of instructions/commands, laid out along the worldline path by a mysterious programmer/creator.
The really existing lower, executive, local, personal control agency cognition, subjectively vividly always experienced as “myself, the controller-agent”.

strong = thotsource thotsrc
weak = executor, local persctrl executor, slave of the commands, just as a computer or robot is a slave controlled by its programming, or a
better:
a remote-controlled robot, telepresence?

worldline = source of thoughts, in that they… like a program is the source of thoughts, but a programmer wrote the program. Who wrote the program? Is the stored program … there is a stored program laid along your worldvine-path. Where did it come from? Who or what wrote it? the demiurge programmed your , or set in place, your instructions on your *thread*.


Acronym Glossary:
transcendent knowledge (TK)
cybernetic theory of ego transcendence (CTET)
egoic (e’c)
transcendent (t’t )


cybernetic TK concept computer architecture/robotics term
————————— ——————————————–
personal control = processing unit; control unit, Luna = control unit = hardware
heimarmene = thread; stored program instructions controlling hw/registers
unctrlbl src of thots = call stack; stored program instructions
Controller X = programmer

“analogy leakage”: A is in some ways like B, in some not (<– analogy leak)

A given idiom in Objective C programming lang is in some ways like C#, in some not.

Luna = control unit = hardware
Sol = program, by programmer (demiurge, in strictly heim system) = software

Ironic — we’d think hardware = male, software = female. But the software controls what the hardware is made (forced) to do.

include terms from Body Electric and last trk of Mvg Pics. Moving Pictures is popular but the orig moving picture is tree/river/rocks on back of CoS.

worldline = cassette tape
block univ = record
minotaur = repeating loop at center of “Bike” and Sgt Pep side b.

Metaphor from my 1987 & Rucker’s 4D — integrate into various topics: film strip. imagine an instructions/cmd seq along the filmstrip. frames. frame[t] of worldline contains instruction[t] or (schiz) command[t]. The command at [t]; the thot (particularly the control-thought) that arises in one’s mind, at time t.

heim snake under bull in Tauroctony, or under a chariot, = command thread worldline in spacetime block. worldline of the command thread. vine = sequence of command-thoughts in spacetime.


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5624 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 23/11/2011
Subject: misc.
mytheme “The Trial” (cmp Saturnalia, ancient novellas)
judging whether we have the ability to ctrl thots
judging the truth of heim

worldthread path

thread/line/snake/path/course/river/vein/wire/cable/[Greek square meander] winding snaking meander

bull’s tail ends in wheat [explain per Hammer. cmp snake (or heim-panther) leading to krater], tail is heimarmene-shaped. “the worldline, not you, is what brought you to the mshr / to the new birth per transformed self-concept”

heimarmene path (worldvine in the marble-block universe) worldvein worldline vein/path/vine/snake/meander/course/river/sinew


my chg of project 1/88 (was “get ctrl”, then was “writeup the revelation of new conception of ego t’c cmp to eg JTP Journal Trasnper Psy’s conception of e t’c”: going into laby, one goal (get ctrl); coming out, enl re nonctrl. That brkthru-that-spun-my-goal-itself-around — that deflection-vector, is classic, characteristic.

Project of hunting for ctrl, see the gdss, hunt conception/goal/objective gets wholly reconfigured.

2nd-order (indirect) metaphor: wine = thoughts. ie wine in concave krater bowl is shaped like the payload of thoughts that come into the mind like sparks thrown off by a sparkler.
Does a goddess couple w/ a mortal to produce a hybrid child in her womb? Isn’t it always the male gods pene a mortal woman, so that a divine child is conceived in her womb?

bladder = womb re: recy aman (Diony’s 2nd birth after titans tore him to pieces and consumed him [check myth, Graves])

Diony’s mortal mother Semele died upon “embrace” (intcs) w/ Zeus
Group: egodeath Message: 5625 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 23/11/2011
Subject: Re: Egodeath indep revel’n of Modern era, Engineering
late modern era definition: Starting in 1983, universities no longer taught Grk, Latin, classics, Greek and Roman culture, Roman Empire. In 1987, it was harder than ever before in history, to figure out TK/CTET; there was 0 passing-on of the key to interpreting mythic-metaphor. But I did have 100% of the resources native to 1987, every possible support, tool, supportiveness, opportunity, of modern content, not classics (that wasn’t encouraged at all).

Had non-metaphorical self-help & transpers psy & zen & hum pot mvmt. Thus truly my CTET = truly new, fresh, original, independent dispensation of TK given to man, *native to* late-Modern era, pure, the “racial purity” of derivation of 1987 CTET (breakthrough & inspiration on 1/11/88 but heavy liting in 1987 esp my fresh stylistic MCP-based restart in 4/87 thus approx 4/15/87-1/11/88 was the heart of the period in which my Theory, the CTET, was created; the core style of CTET, if any, is purely natively based in leadingedge style of 1987.

If Core is dated, smells of 1987 ivy league private but no-longer-classical university, a univ that’s abandoned classical-ism, cancelled the Classics dept/college, built Engr bldgs/dept/college instead. “It came from Engineering” (& self-help/hum pot/transper psy/zen) *not* from Classics tho i had a bit of familiarity with going to jsh temple and non-icon’ic, Amer-born, NT-only liturgic, Xy (a denom that rejects “Protes” label as much as “Cath”) — and other brands of typical Xy (not Cath/Anglic) of 1970s/80s.


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath Message: 5626 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 23/11/2011
Subject: Re: Two accompanying up/down torchbearers, thieves, etc
What item in Tauroc does up torch illum? What top-level topic does that map to in Core theory?
Sol (& Luna). nonctrl or esp, source of thoughts

What in Taur needs no torch? What top-level topic does that map to in Core theory?
Bull. Middle level. ctrl-loss

What item in Tauroc does down torch illum? What top-level topic does that map to in Core theory?
Snake. worldline; heimarmene; block universe.


See 3-level taurocs.

Top Layer/Level (above the mind)
Sol (really existing giver/source of thoughts) and Luna (really existing executor) are in top layer outside the cave curve ceiling.

Middle Layer/Level (the mind)
Awareness (Mithras’ looking), bull, and dog (faithfulness/trust/loyalty/obedient dependence) are in middle.

Lower Layer/Level (underlying the mind)
snake, sometimes leading to mshr krater cup/receptacle, or = to that, up to blood of bull which comes from krater woumd (cmp monk collecting jesus’ spear-wound blood into cup: there, direct connection is made between wound & cup thus wound & krater, womb = tomb = wound; m-wine = spear = blood).

Holy Grail = womb = the thot-receiver (receptacle/vessel/womb) component of the personal control system in the mind = mshr. in grail is liq is spm is thot inserted by Gd or by the program instruction sequence programmed by Gd.


Mithraism some tauroctonys show:
one torch flame held up above cave ceiling, lighting-up (making us perceive) Sol, the uncontrollable injector of command-thoughts into the mind, as a control-thought-stream ray; and
the other torch held down below the bull, lighting-up (making us perceive) the hiemarmene-snake underneath us — the hidden, vine-shaped rail that we are steered and forced along like in a haunted house carnival ride, or the branch-path a squirrel follows from the trunck to the branch the squirrel ends up at, or like a snake winding up a tree.


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.

Egodeath Yahoo Group – Digest 90: 2006-05-01

Site Map


Group: egodeath Message: 4525 From: egodeath@yahoogroups.com Date: 01/05/2006
Subject: File – EgodeathGroupCharter.txt
Group: egodeath Message: 4526 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 18/09/2006
Subject: Article draft: NT as Originally Understood: King on Cross in Roman
Group: egodeath Message: 4527 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 02/10/2006
Subject: Re: Article: The Entheogen Theory of Religion and Ego Death
Group: egodeath Message: 4528 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 02/10/2006
Subject: Bk: Ken Wilber: Integral Spirituality
Group: egodeath Message: 4529 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 02/10/2006
Subject: Holy Spirit, Eucharist, turning away from self to God
Group: egodeath Message: 4531 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 02/10/2006
Subject: Dead Sea Scrolls: Swallow the Teacher of Righteousness
Group: egodeath Message: 4532 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 02/10/2006
Subject: Re: Divine wrath, machine dualism, prayer is to benevolent person/a
Group: egodeath Message: 4534 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 02/10/2006
Subject: Postings must be ready-to-publish, disadvantage of email blog
Group: egodeath Message: 4535 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 02/10/2006
Subject: Re: Nonduality, pre-set future in block universe
Group: egodeath Message: 4536 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 03/10/2006
Subject: Re: Nonduality, pre-set future in block universe
Group: egodeath Message: 4537 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 03/10/2006
Subject: Re: Bk: Ken Wilber: Integral Spirituality
Group: egodeath Message: 4538 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 28/03/2007
Subject: Time is right for political anti-empire reading of New Testament
Group: egodeath Message: 4539 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 28/03/2007
Subject: Re: Time is right for political anti-empire reading of New Testament
Group: egodeath Message: 4540 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 28/03/2007
Subject: Re: Time is right for political anti-empire reading of New Testament
Group: egodeath Message: 4541 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 28/03/2007
Subject: Re: 1-year break from Egodeath research
Group: egodeath Message: 4542 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 28/03/2007
Subject: Psychoactives and political culture
Group: egodeath Message: 4543 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 28/03/2007
Subject: Planned book on theory of religious experiential insight
Group: egodeath Message: 4544 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 29/03/2007
Subject: Re: Psychoactives and political culture
Group: egodeath Message: 4545 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 29/03/2007
Subject: New John Allegro website
Group: egodeath Message: 4546 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 29/03/2007
Subject: Book: Letcher; Shroom: Cultural History of Magic Mushroom
Group: egodeath Message: 4549 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 29/03/2007
Subject: Re: Book: Letcher; Shroom: Cultural History of Magic Mushroom
Group: egodeath Message: 4555 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 29/03/2007
Subject: Admin: duplicate posts
Group: egodeath Message: 4572 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 29/03/2007
Subject: Re: Book: Letcher; Shroom: Cultural History of Magic Mushroom
Group: egodeath Message: 4574 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 30/03/2007
Subject: Re: Time is right for political anti-empire reading of New Testament
Group: egodeath Message: 4575 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 30/03/2007
Subject: Book: Hofstadter: I Am a Strange Loop
Group: egodeath Message: 4576 From: egodeath@yahoogroups.com Date: 01/04/2007
Subject: File – EgodeathGroupCharter.txt
Group: egodeath Message: 4577 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 02/04/2007
Subject: Re: Book: Letcher; Shroom: Cultural History of Magic Mushroom
Group: egodeath Message: 4578 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 02/04/2007
Subject: Re: Book: Letcher; Shroom: Cultural History of Magic Mushroom
Group: egodeath Message: 4579 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 04/04/2007
Subject: Re: Book: Letcher; Shroom: Cultural History of Magic Mushroom
Group: egodeath Message: 4580 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 07/04/2007
Subject: The maximal entheogen theory of religion
Group: egodeath Message: 4581 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 07/04/2007
Subject: Letcher’s 2 theories & the 3rd, maximal entheogen theory
Group: egodeath Message: 4582 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 07/04/2007
Subject: Re: The maximal entheogen theory of religion
Group: egodeath Message: 4583 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 07/04/2007
Subject: No smoking-gun evidence w/o smoking-gun interpretation-framework
Group: egodeath Message: 4584 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 12/04/2007
Subject: Webpage: Various Views on Entheogens in Religious History
Group: egodeath Message: 4585 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 15/04/2007
Subject: Re: All ‘wine’ was ‘mixed wine’ — psychoactive/dissociative, inten
Group: egodeath Message: 4586 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 17/04/2007
Subject: Re: Dead Sea Scrolls: Swallow the Teacher of Righteousness
Group: egodeath Message: 4587 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 17/04/2007
Subject: Re: Divine abduction; violence in mythic allegory
Group: egodeath Message: 4588 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 18/04/2007
Subject: Grounding Esotericism in cognitive experiential phenomena
Group: egodeath Message: 4589 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 26/04/2007
Subject: Re: Ulansey in movie Entheogen: Awakening the God Within
Group: egodeath Message: 4590 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 26/04/2007
Subject: Movie: Entheogen: Awakening the Divine Within
Group: egodeath Message: 4591 From: egodeath@yahoogroups.com Date: 01/05/2007
Subject: File – EgodeathGroupCharter.txt
Group: egodeath Message: 4593 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 10/06/2007
Subject: Seminar: R. Joseph Hoffmann: The Jesus Project
Group: egodeath Message: 4594 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 11/06/2007
Subject: Pls mirror, backup, and download Egodeath.com webpages
Group: egodeath Message: 4595 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 11/06/2007
Subject: Re: Pls mirror, backup, and download Egodeath.com webpages
Group: egodeath Message: 4596 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 12/06/2007
Subject: Origin of Theory in frustrating effort for personal thought-directi
Group: egodeath Message: 4597 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 12/06/2007
Subject: Re: Origin of Theory in frustrating effort for personal thought-dir
Group: egodeath Message: 4598 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 12/06/2007
Subject: Re: Origin of Theory in frustrating effort for personal thought-dir
Group: egodeath Message: 4599 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 13/06/2007
Subject: Priority of discovery, ego transcendence theory as my possession
Group: egodeath Message: 4600 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 13/06/2007
Subject: Objective: encyl., become must-mention theorist in multiple fields,
Group: egodeath Message: 4601 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 14/06/2007
Subject: My necessary work on Theory is completed, other is icing



Group: egodeath Message: 4525 From: egodeath@yahoogroups.com Date: 01/05/2006
Subject: File – EgodeathGroupCharter.txt
The Egodeath Yahoo group is a Weblog sent out by Michael Hoffman,
covering the cybernetic theory of ego death and ego transcendence,
including:

o Nonreductionistic block-universe determinism/Fatedness, the closed
and preexisting future, tenseless time, free will as illusory, the
holographic universe, and predestination and Reformed theology.

o Cognitive science, mental construct processing, mental models,
ontological idealism, contemporary metaphysics of the continuant
self, cybernetic self-control, personal control agency, moral agency,
and self-government.

o Zen satori, short-path enlightenment, and Alan Watts;
transpersonal psychology, Ken Wilber, and integral theory.

o Entheogens and psychedelic drugs, the Eleusinian mysteries and
cracking the allegorical code of the mystery religions, mythic
metaphor and allegorical encoding, the mystic altered state, mystic
and religious experiencing, visionary states, religious rapture, and
Acid Rock mysticism.

o Loss of control, self-control seizure, cognitive instability, and
psychosis and schizophrenia.


— Michael Hoffman
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath
http://www.egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 4526 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 18/09/2006
Subject: Article draft: NT as Originally Understood: King on Cross in Roman
Outline of my next article:

The New Testament as It Was Originally Understood: The King on the
Cross in the Context of the Roman Empire
http://egodeath.com/NTKingOnCrossInRomanEmpire.htm


The article focuses on integrating 3 topics:

o The ahistoricity of Jesus and Paul, and alternative history of
Christian origins

o Christianity as a negation of or counter to Roman Imperial ideology

o The entheogen-induced mystic altered state


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 4527 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 02/10/2006
Subject: Re: Article: The Entheogen Theory of Religion and Ego Death
Please save a local copy of the latest version of this article:

http://www.egodeath.com/EntheogenTheoryOfReligion.htm


I added machine-translation links in 30 languages.

The issue is expected in 9 months. The editor is having to
reconstruct the issue.


I added the following introduction:


This article defines and outlines the ego death theory, as a new
systematic research framework and paradigm. The ego death theory holds
that the essence and origin of religion is the use of visionary plants
to routinely trigger the intense mystic altered state, producing loose
cognitive-association binding, which then produces an experience of
being controlled by frozen block-universe determinism with a single,
pre-existing, ever-existing future.

Experiencing this model of control and time initially destabilizes
self-control power, and amounts to the death of the self that was
conceived of as an autonomous control-agent. Self-control stability is
restored upon transforming one’s mental model to take into account the
dependence of personal control on a hidden, separate thought-source,
such as Necessity or a divine level that transcends Necessity.

Myth describes this mystic-state experiential insight and
transformation. Religious initiation teaches and causes this
transformation of the self considered as a control-agent, through a
series of visionary-plant sessions, interspersed with study of
perennial philosophy. Most modern-era religion has been a distortion
of this standard initiation system, reducing these concepts to a weak
interpretation that is based in the ordinary state of consciousness.
The ego death theory is, specifically, the Cybernetic Theory of Ego
Transcendence, and it incorporates the entheogen theory of religion.


I added the final sentence in the following paragraph:

Sociopolitical Strategy of Canonical Christianity

Mystic revelation about self-will nullity was so routine, Roman
imperial theology utilized the mystic-state revelation to legitimate
the Roman sociopolitical arrangement. Christianity essentially charged
the Roman system with mysticism-abuse and became popular as an
counter-narrative about how the entheogen-accessed mystic revelation
should be used for sociopolitical concerns. The figure of the ‘king on
the cross’ in the New Testament is a depiction of the mystic-state
insight of non-autonomous control, in service of a rebuttal and
alternative to Roman imperial theology.
Group: egodeath Message: 4528 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 02/10/2006
Subject: Bk: Ken Wilber: Integral Spirituality
This is my review or summary. I’ll post a version of this to Amazon
when the book is shipping from there and their posting is turned on.


5 stars
Integral theory applied to spirituality and religion

Wilber points out that for a coherent discussion of spirituality, we
must specify whether by ‘spiritual’ we mean the highest levels in any
developmental line, a separate special line of development, a peak
altered state, or a particular attitude. Lower stages unconsciously
do a downward translation of great spiritual treatises to lower
developmental levels.

Spiritual paths need to be supplemented with an Integral Life Practice
including understanding the Integral model (View, Framework) of states
and stages, so that you succeed at reaching and stabilizing more
developed stages, not merely accessing transient higher states. Put
your existing path into the Integral framework, producing Integral
Buddhism, integral Christianity (Keating), Integral Kabbalah (Zalman,
Moshe Idel). Affirm your faith and path as it is, and make it
Integral. Include pre-modern (traditional religious themes), modern
(rational, worldcentric) and postmodern (awareness of social
constructivism and implicit/covert power-relations). Integral
religion opens up in breadth instead of narrowing into fundamentalism
or absolutism.

We must find, face, and re-own the most feared and resisted aspects of
ourselves. Meditation fails to get rid of the shadow elements.

Full Self-Realization or Enlightenment is, becoming one with all
states and stages, transcending and including them all, including all
aspects and structures of the Kosmos. Meditation enables you to move
up two stages per four years.

The religious traditions have no explicit concept or understanding of
Vertical structure-stages, so such a framework is needed. Wilber’s
assertion “no explicit concept” is debatable in light of astral ascent
mysticism or Ptolemaic framework of mystic ascent through the levels
of the heavens, a master theme of Western religious history; Wilber’s
collective-evolution master hypothesis tends to overly downplay any
equivalent stage-system in antiquity – instead, he should recover,
identify, and leverage more of the Integral aspects that were present
in traditional religion.

Wilber asserts that religion, such as American Buddhism, needs to
appreciate the I/Thou relationship: worship, devotion, prayer,
submission, and surrender to the divine.

Spirituality was omitted from the modern revolution because religion
had become violently harmful; as a result, spirituality was
infantilized and frozen at the mere childhood mythic-membership stage.
Religion became a repressed shadow and science became the modern
religion (scientism), though science was incapable of providing for
“ultimate concern”. Secular humanists repressed the spiritual
developmental line, and religious defenders froze the spiritual
developmental line at the mythic stage, neither faction allowing
modern spirituality to emerge. The entire spirituality developmental
line was mistakenly identified by all as spirituality in its merely
mythic-stage version.

Wilber’s evolutionism tends to belittle former eras in order to prop
up the model of cultural evolution. His evolutionism requires that he
negatively portray ancient religion as barely understood by all but a
few practitioners. He portrays ancient religion as archaic
magic/mythic gullibility, but writes of selected individuals: “Already
Clement and Origen and Maimonides were [using deeper and higher
meanings] with their allegorical method. The religious myths simply
*are not empirically real*, and they knew it, and so while honoring
the myths, one must move from myth to reason to trans-reason in order
to plumb the depths of spiritual realities. … allow the line of
spiritual intelligence to continue its growth … into the higher
levels, and, conversely, forcing the myths to be [literally] real is
the surest way to remain frozen at that level and slip into a
pernicious … Fallacy.” p. 193, his emphasis. Wilber’s
cultural-evolution driven model implies that all but a few of the
earliest Christians misunderstand their religion and took it gullibly,
and these few later, unusually advanced commentators managed to “move
to” a “deeper” understanding that wasn’t present among earliest
Christians.

He portrays ancient religion as mostly archaic belief in magical myth,
excepting Neoplatonism. Wilber’s model of integral scholarship
equates the East with religious enlightenment while equating the West
exclusively with modern science, totally ignoring the topic of ancient
Western religion as though it doesn’t exist except in the form of
Neoplatonism and the mysteriously enlightened individuals ahead of
their time such as Jesus and Origen.


Despite the added-on bubble labeled “also: altered states” on his
quadrant diagram, he doesn’t provide a treatment of entheogens
(visionary plants). He is moderately positive about drugs in raves,
compared to the lack of authentic spirituality in current
institutionalized religious practice, but he refrains from seriously
entering into the topic. Wilber defines 3 or 4 states, starting with
waking, dreaming, and unconsciousness, equated with Gross, Subtle, and
Causal; there’s also Nondual. Wilber may be presenting a simplified
model here; for example, he mentions psychoactive drugs accessing peak
states, but psychoactive drugs produce neither waking, dreaming, nor
deep sleep unconsciousness.


The most important role for the traditional religions is to act as a
sacred conveyor belt to move people through all the stages of
psychospiritual development. The religions must provide a version of
the religion suited to each developmental stage. Science cannot
provide this; only religion or the religions are capable of providing
this – providing for the early stages of a person’s religious growth
and the later, more advanced stages. Christianity used to only
provide for the early, mythic, magic, barely developed stages – even
if Clement and Origen saw its higher potentials – and Christianity now
needs to add something it didn’t have before, which is versions suited
for more advanced stages of integral psychospiritual development.
Only religion can provide higher levels of religion in order to stop
religious violence.

Religions should now add nonordinary states of consciousness to their
practices, to act as this developmental conveyor belt. The more you
experience various states of consciousness, the faster you progress
into advanced psychospiritual developmental stages. Meditation or
contemplation is the only practice that accesses these states and
causes this developmental advancement. Vatican II was a step in the
right direction, toward an accommodating plurality-accepting, entire
worldcentric version of the religion.

Higher levels of consciousness have developed since antiquity when the
religions were created. These religions were originally present in
their child-phase versions that were magico-mythic, ethnocentric, and
relevant only to early-stage development of the individual. These
religions now need to add to their original versions, for the first
time, new, higher-level versions. People are falsely forced to choose
between infantile, mentally undeveloped archaic religion
(developmentally frozen and arrested) versus mentally developed modern
scientific culture. Modern liberal education represses spiritual
development beyond the fundamentalist, tribal, literalist stage; only
religion can solve this by providing a new version suited for more
advanced spiritual development.

Future religion should omit metaphysics, which is guilty of
monological blindness. That is, religion needs to avoid reifying
postulated or subjectively experienced religious constructs taken as
directly perceived referents, to instead become aware of how
subjective experiencing unconsciously employs perspectives that are
given by one’s culture.


Do objects, such as ecosystems, exist regardless of our thinking, or
outside our minds? Wilber’s answer is, partially, and maybe. He
sometimes equates our *maps* of reality with a naive *mirror* of
reality and lumps “map” and “mirror” together to affirm that only when
something enters consciousness, does the thing exist; the mind creates
or modifies reality. Yet on the same page, he says that the things
(such as ecosystems) do exist apart from our map or mental mirror of
them. Then he emphasizes in all-caps that we can’t know whether they
exist aside from the mind. He could tone down the overstated,
sensationalist “minds in culture create reality” component, while
keeping the straightforward, valuable point that we need to be
conscious of what worldview we adopt and how it affects our
perception. We should mind our maps and not mistake them for a
perfect mirror of reality. Religion must reject culturally given
metaphysics sky-castles while retaining spirituality. Wilber’s loose
language sometimes denies that metaphysics or ecosystems has an
existence of-itself, outside particular minds. Per intersubjective
constructivism, groups of minds create reality in-itself; that view
disparages the mental-representation model because it is naive about
the fact that intersubjective culture constructs the individual’s
subjective experience.

Transpersonal spiritual realities are partly constructed by networks
of implicit cultural backgrounds – meditation can’t show you that.
Unawareness of that falls into the error of “the myth of the [simply]
given” or “the philosophy of [straightforward] consciousness”.
Personal mystic-state perception, when divorced from alertness to
intersubjective cultural construction and awareness of societal
power-relations, is rife with unperceived distortions. Ecological
systems-theory is not spirituality, or not the bulk of it.
Metaphysics is covert manipulative power. Postmodernism is wrong in
claiming that there are no extra-linguistic realities, per lower-left,
social quadrant absolutism.


Sound knowledge requires an injunction (to know x, do x), an
experience, and communal confirmation with others who do the same,
regarding what was done and thereby seen. Spiritual assertions aren’t
meaningless, when they’re properly framed as “to observe x, meditate”.
In contrast, metaphysics is to be discarded (while retaining
spirituality), because metaphysics is assertion without injunction and
evidence. Wilber assumes that metaphysics was put forward without
injunction or practice, but it’s not clear that metaphysics systems
lacked injunctions and practice.

The experiences behind metaphysics were authentic, but the
interpretations outmoded. Metaphysics is false because it claims to
be beyond physics, when in fact spiritual experiencing still involves
physics.


We have to define what enlightenment should mean in all eras, given
the premise that the cultures were at different developmental
evolutionary stages. Someone 2000 years ago can’t have gone through
all the developmental stages that are available today, because some
stages, such as systemic GlobalView, had not yet been developed. Here
Wilber should discuss the Roman imperial universality claim (its claim
to redeem individual, society, and nature throughout the entire world)
and the New Testament Christian universalist counter-claim reaction.
Wilber discusses when worldcentric structures first arose for a few
people. He doesn’t mention the claims that Augustus Caesar brought
peace to and was savior of the entire world, meaning the entire Roman
empire, consisting of many peoples, and how the “only Jesus is savior”
claim (which Wilber considers ethnocentric) stood against that
specific claim.

Wilber should practice integral scholarship on the subject of the New
Testament version of Christianity, including sacred meals,
mystic-state initiation, and the deliberate construction of
alternative social-political structures. Integral Christianity should
include historical awareness of early Christian social-political
structuring. Wilber writes that the religions should begin adding
altered states, as though Christianity didn’t start with the
Eucharistic access to the Holy Spirit. He leaves out the group
mystic-state experiencing present in the mystery-religions. Wilber
discusses integral religion without discussing the essential,
most-important topic of New Testament Christianity in its original
religious and social-political context; Wilber could learn much from
Richard Horsley. He doesn’t cover how myth functioned in New
Testament Christianity and the Eucharist in the Roman imperial
context; the myth-suffused mystery-religions and their sacred meals;
or ancient Western religion and Western Esotericism.


The book relies on jargon unnecessarily, with too few definitional
cues and no glossary. The publisher needs to do a better job for
readability. ‘Postmodernism’ means the postmodern revolution –
awareness of cultural intersubjectivity. ‘Monological’ means the
obliviousness to cultural intersubjectivity, obliviousness to cultural
constructivism (how reality is largely constructed by social
collections of people); lack of awareness of how subjective
experiencing unconsciously employs perspectives that are given by
one’s culture. ‘Modern’ largely means the prohibition of subjectivity
and denial of subjective experiencing.

‘Zone #2′ is the scientific, external study of individuals’ subjective
interior experience; Wilber considers consciousness of Zone #2 highly
valuable – he seems to mean Zone #2 in connection with becoming highly
aware of how intersubjective culture largely creates the individual’s
filter through which religious mystic-state perceptions seem to give a
direct view into divine reality.

Religion is currently dysfunctional and developmentally arrested;
Wilber calls for each traditional religion to add (and reclaim and
resurrect, I’d say) higher versions of the religion, in an Integral
context; this is the role he defines for religion in the late modern
and post-modern eras.
Group: egodeath Message: 4529 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 02/10/2006
Subject: Holy Spirit, Eucharist, turning away from self to God
This is a fairly good, readable article on
salvation/justification/regeneration/sancification via the Holy Spirit
( = intense mystic altered state induced by ‘mixed wine’).

http://www.ugst.org/download/21_Bernard.doc

It would be good to excerpt passages that are quotable. The
prominence of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament (as well as the
Dead Sea Scrolls) strikes a blow against the massive “OSC fallacy”.
Becoming a converted, reborn Christian is not a matter of conceding to
logical propositions in the ordinary state; it’s a matter of
experiencing the mind-transforming power of the altered state of the
Holy Spirit. In the New Testament this transformative event was used
to construct an alternative social-political configuration within the
Roman empire; the strategy for building an alternative
social-political system was primarily founded upon the Holy Spirit
experiential transformation.


>>Urshan Graduate School of Theology is owned and operated by the
United Pentecostal Church International. … the new birth described
by Jesus Christ in John 3 and declared by Peter in Acts 2:38 is
essential for New Testament conversion. We believe that the one God of
the Old Testament became incarnate in Jesus Christ. … God, who is
holy, calls each of us into relationship with Him. We believe in
covenanting the Spirit, anticipating the soon return of the Lord Jesus
Christ.


>>By obedient faith, the sinner turns to God in repentance and
receives the gift of the Holy Spirit, “which is Christ in you, the
hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27).

“And” implies a “1 and then 2” sequence, incorrectly; mind the “order
of salvation”. Per Reformed theology and obvious entheogen sequence,
the above can’t possibly be the right order. Until the initiate
experiences the Holy Spirit’s mind-transforming power, the sinner is
incapable of turning to God in repentance. It can’t be that the
sinner first turns to God in repentance and then afterwards, receives
the Holy Spirit. The sentence would be better reordered:

By receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit (via a series of Eucharistic
entheogenic ‘mixed wine’ initiations), the sinner is regenerated to
having obedient faith, and is made to turn to God in repentance,
receiving as a gift “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians
1:27).


Conversion = turning = turn back to see the source of your thoughts as
a mysterious thing external to your own domain of power. Sometimes
Hellenistic writing describes it as “turning away from the sacrifice”
— what is sacrificed is the false autonomy-assumption that is the
heart of egoic agency; the mind’s direction of attention turns away
from that which is being sacrificed (the autonomy claim) and back
towards the hidden source of one’s thoughts. So Mithras and the
figures in Dionysus’ victory parade fresco are all turning to look
back behind them — toward God/Deus/Zeus/Jupiter, considered as the
hidden (veiled & revealed darkly) source of their thoughts. Picture:
http://www.egodeath.com/EntheogenTheoryOfReligion.htm#_Toc146854069
Turn = sacrifice, in that turning around to look behind your mind and
thereby perceive that God is the source of thoughts, is tantamount to
sacrificing the purportedly autonomous self.
Group: egodeath Message: 4531 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 02/10/2006
Subject: Dead Sea Scrolls: Swallow the Teacher of Righteousness
Martinez’ translation: It’s part of the pescher commentary on
Habakkuk. 1QpHab XI —

Afterwards, knowledge will be revealed to them, as plentiful as the
water in the sea.
[per Habakkuk:] Woe to anyone making his companion drunk, spilling out
his anger! He even makes him drunk to look at their festivals!
Its interpretation concerns the Wicked Priest who pursued the Teacher
of Righteousness to consume him with the ferocity of this anger in the
place of his banishment, in festival time, during the rest of the day
of Atonement. He paraded in front of them, to consume them and make
them fall on the day of fasting, the sabbath of their rest.
[per Habakkuk:] You are more glutted with insults than with awards.
Drink up also and stagger! The cup of YHWH’s right hand will turn
against you and disgrace come upon your glory.
Its interpretation concerns the Priest whose shame has exceeded his
glory because he did not circumcise the foreskin of his heart and has
walked on paths of drunkenness to slake his thirst; but the cup of
God’s anger will engulf him, heaping up shame upon him.


http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=swallow+%22t
eacher+of+righteousness%22


http://byubroadcasting.org/deadsea/book/chapter1/sec3.html — In a
passage of the Commentary on Habakkuk, the expositor comments, “This
means the priest whose dishonor was greater than his honor. For he . .
. walked in the ways of drunkedness in order to quench his thirst. But
the cup of God’s wrath will swallow him up . . . !”

http://www.subtleenergies.com/ORMUS/presentations/dallas4.htm
“‘Perfection’, the Holy Spirit, and more startling even than these,
that this ‘is the time of the perpetuation of the way in the
wilderness’. This is specifically tied to exegesis, to the Maskil’s
‘preparation of the Way’ by ‘teaching of the Miraculous Mysteries’.”
[Eisenman and Wise, The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered, p. 164] That’s
enough, we can change it. The one I’m looking for should be along here
someplace. Yeah. In here we finally find out who the Teacher of
Righteousness is. To “take ‘vengeance’ on the Wicked Priest for what
he did to the [Righteous Teacher]” Teacher of Righteousness, “i.e.
‘swallowed him’ or ‘destroyed him'”. The high priest swallowed the
Teacher of Righteousness. The Teacher of Righteousness can’t be a
person. The Teacher of Righteousness is the Light. The Teacher of
Righteousness is the Holy Spirit. Remember what we said, there’s only
one sin you never can be forgiven for, and that’s to sin against the
Holy Spirit, the teacher of Righteousness. When you are filled with
the Light, when you are filled with the Spirit and you know all things
and you understand all things, and to sin then is unforgivable because
you knew better. So when the high priest sinned it’s an unforgivable
sin. “How the Wicked Priest pursued” the teacher, “the Righteous
Teacher, to ‘swallow’ or ‘consume’ him”. Okay? I don’t know how many
of you are familiar with the early Dead Sea Scrolls writings, but they
talk repeatedly and go on at length about this Teacher of
Righteousness. All right, this is what . . . the Teacher of
Righteousness is something you can swallow. Right there. Right there.
This is a big piece of the puzzle. You can swallow the teacher of
Righteousness. In other words, it’s a material you could take in your
body. It’s the Bread of the Presence of God. It’s the High
Priesthood’s food, that only the High Priests could have. Okay, next
slide.


http://www.halexandria.org/dward523.htm — “It was at Qumran that the
Essenes set up a metallurgical foundry and began producing the ‘occult
gold’, essentially the mono-atomic precious elements. There are
numerous references to the priests ‘swallowing the Teacher of
Righteousness’. If the so-called teacher was the Orme, one can
readily understand what they were talking about. For when one takes
the Orme under the right circumstances, one expects to receive visions
and other revelations from the ascended teachers. On the other hand,
if the ‘Teacher’ was a living person, then it doesn’t make a lot of
sense.” “Unless it’s a forerunner of communion,” Dawn interjected.
The big question remaining, however, is whether or not anyone can
swallow the ‘Teacher of Righteousness’. And if so, what are the
prerequisites?”

“To take the short route to enlightenment, you mean?” Dawn asked.
Group: egodeath Message: 4532 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 02/10/2006
Subject: Re: Divine wrath, machine dualism, prayer is to benevolent person/a
Ken Wilber’s new book, Integral Spirituality, asserts that the
following has been lacking from American Buddhism and needs to be
included as one of the perspectives, to form a complete, Integral,
authentic, and comprehensive practice: 2nd-person, I/Thou
relationship, relational prayer, and personal devotional submission
and surrender to the divine.
Group: egodeath Message: 4534 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 02/10/2006
Subject: Postings must be ready-to-publish, disadvantage of email blog
Any time I send out a posting with ungrammatical contructions and
missing words, or typos, I’m chagrined. High-quality writing is
extremely important, even though time may be too limited to spend
polishing. After I’ve tried writing in a hurry, I definitely don’t
consider the results acceptable. I do not approve of postings that
aren’t written properly. However, I can’t always take the time to
draft and print, mark-up and correct my posts before I send them. A
compromise may be to slam-out in brainstorm fashion a draft posting,
and then, if I find it’s warranted, re-send a cleaned-up version.

Here’s another way in which blog technology has certain advantages; I
could edit a blog post later, but I can’t edit a Yahoo groups posting
after sending it — I can only delete the old version from the Yahoo
Groups site and send a subsequent posting.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 4535 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 02/10/2006
Subject: Re: Nonduality, pre-set future in block universe
(Expanded and edited version of the earlier posting)


How nonduality is related to the pre-set future and block universe

Emphasizing the new idea of the pre-set future rather than the old
idea of nonduality


The frozen-future block universe denies freedom for self and for Self.
Western religion affirms determinism (Heimarmene/Fatum) only to then
postulate and proceed to the trans-rational, spiritual realm beyond
it; the elect are brought into “true freedom” as a “slave of the
transcendent God”). Similarly, in Eastern religious philosophy, after
we declare that the Ground of Being and the Self are not free, and
that the future is single, fixed, pre-set, pre-existent, and closed,
we may go on to postulate a trans-rational, spiritual, highly
transcendent status – after ego has died – for the Ground of Being and
the Self.


The ego may die “because of” nonduality, but the Egodeath theory is
based on a more phenomenologically comprehensive sense of “because”.
What is the most efficient and ergonomic mental model that causes the
most intense and “catastrophic” ego-death experiential insight? We
need a fuller phenomenology, a fuller account, than just the idea of
“nonduality” can provide, to address and pull up into awareness some
of the most fascinating dynamic potential constructs the mind can
produce: that is, the dynamics of control-battling and
control-usurpation, or control-coercion, which fit together with, and
co-amplify with, the block-universe model.

Nonduality, spacetime merging, near-future thoughts unavoidably forced
upon the mind, and frozen-time block-universe determinism fit together
in a powerful mutually reinforcing way, serving as the fastest and
most straightforward path to mental transformation. The resulting
explanation and system of transformative religion is incomparably more
effective and readily accessible, and more comprehensive, than the
popular American Buddhist use of the concept of nonduality.


Oneness or nonduality is an overemphasized cliche, done to death,
providing limited insight and limited practical usefulness. The
Egodeath theory focuses instead on what’s still left out by such a
perspective, including the personal sensation of merging with
spacetime – it’s this sensation which causes ego death and
comprehending the ramifications of nonduality. If we halt at
nonduality as the “reason for” ego death, that doesn’t pack a punch;
it doesn’t help grasp and comprehend the ramifications of nonduality.
The “personal control over time” dimension is needed, to cause ego
death. This includes a mental model of the entire time axis, as well
as special attention to the unavoidability of one’s particular pre-set
thoughts lying ahead on the worldline a couple minutes into the
future.

For similar reasons, levels of control and the puppet experience of
being controlled by a hidden overpowering controller fill a role that
the concept of nonduality can’t possibly fill. Even if we grant that
nonduality is the real reason why ego doesn’t exist but is just an
illusion, the question remains of how we can effectively and vividly
grasp and comprehend the ramifications of nonduality – how we can most
effectively visualize nonduality and its implications.

The frozen-future block universe idea is the most efficient tool
toward homing-in on an ego-death sensation. It is simple, tangible,
definite, and specific. It fits with ancient Western religious
mythology.

Fully experiencing nonduality entails an idea and feeling of a kind of
powerlessness of self, or a powerless dependence of self on something
that transcends the self, where the self is considered as a
time-voyaging continuant control-agent. Oneness hasn’t emphasized
that insight and feeling of powerlessness effectively enough. The
frozen future and block universe model drives home the idea of
powerlessness and nonduality more effectively than meditating
exclusively on the isolated principle of nonduality possibly can. The
most straightforward means of having a powerful ego death experiential
insight is to consider the idea of frozen future and block universe.

Oneness has been tried, has been overplayed, is overfamiliar, and is
narrowly limited. A different angle is needed, to describe sensations
and explain common reports from schizophrenic and psychedelic
experience. We could declare these reports of puppethood and loss of
control-power to be failures of rightly understanding nonduality – but
so dismissing them does no one a favor, and fails to leverage the
tremendous power of these experiential insights. We must work through
the phenomenology, the dynamics of coming to grips with nonduality and
all of its implications, not just try to leap over those
intermediate-stage dynamics and skip far ahead to a half-articulated
right relationship with nonduality.

We have to explain how the battle is worked-out, not just define the
naive and enlightened endpoints of the dramatic storyline. There are
reports not only of oneness, but of powerlessness, frozenness, and
lack of control — experiential elements which are not effectively
covered by the now-overfamiliar cliche notion of oneness. The oneness
idea in isolation is incomplete; it’s not the whole range of peak
sensations/insights. There’s much more than oneness, in the
experience reports.

The frozen-future block universe may or may not be the truth (and we
may or may not be able to transcend it if it’s true), but it is an
experience, a series of experiences to work-through. The
frozen-future block universe with control destabilization and puppet
control-levels is a mental model that quite effectively kills ego and
causes mental transformation of inner agency ideas. This Theory puts
forth something starkly different in scope and method than the
familiar fare.


All times are caused together as a system; vertical causality needs
attention. Causality is conventionally pictured as a forward chain;
it’s legitimate to talk of forward causality, as a conventional
description of relationships of events. But vertical causality is
more insightful and relevant for the mystic altered state.

The conventional conceptual categories within Eastern and pre-modern
Western thought can be neatly bridged. Is Neoplatonism incompatible
with Gnosticism? Is Jewish creator-worship mystic ascent, to perceive
the throne of God, incompatible with Gnosticism? Is Eastern
nonduality incompatible with Western transcendence of Heimarmene?
It’s axiomatic that these conceptions can be reconciled and
harmonized, and that an explicit, robust, modern, scientific
understanding of religious experiential insight involves successfully
harmonizing and reconciling these seemingly different systems.

There is somewhat of an East/West conceptual divide, and a
Neoplatonism/Gnosticism divide. The Egodeath theory is based in both
Eastern and Western thought, including Alan Watts’ book Way of Zen,
Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory, and Western thought including Watts’
books on Christianity. The Egodeath theory fits well with Western
pre-modern “mystics”, when rightly identifying these “mystics” as
Western mystery-religion initiates and Western esotericists. The
Egodeath theory solves many long-standing problems and puzzles in the
interpretation of Western myth-religion. This theory regarding
spacetime embeddedness and control-levels matches the view of some
mystics, raising the question of the disparity between Neoplatonists
and Gnostics.

The Eastern nonduality concept seems to map more closely to
Neoplatonist attitudes than to Gnostic attitudes, both which were
taken up into later Western, Catholic religious thought, where one
would both reverence the Creation and reverence the ultra-transcendent
aspect of God. Conventional, nonduality-focused views appear to be
set against the Egodeath theory’s use of the Gnostic conceptual
scheme, and its attitudes (or its metaphor-choices) of loathing
nondual embeddedness in spacetime and solving that problem by entirely
escaping into a radically separate, ultra-transcendent realm.

That attitude of outright escape from the world, leaving the world
behind, was anathema to the early proto-Catholic leaders — the
“Judaisers” — because it’s politically impotent. Even if “leaving
the world behind” is considered merely a mystic-state metaphor, it is
a poor choice of metaphors for an organization that is trying to set
up an alternative social-political network in the world.

The New Testament version of Christianity was crafted so as to
incorporate both A) the Gnostic theme of perceiving our spacetime
embeddedness and escaping from that imprisonment in Nature by
transcending spacetime; and B) the Jewish and the Roman imperial
religion emphasis on actions in the world so as to make the world
gloriously reconfigured so as to truly realize the Roman imperial
propaganda’s claim to bring peace and restoration of fecundity of
Nature. Neoplatonism was fit into this mix as well, including the
general idea of rising to a transcendent (changeless) perspective,
while still valuing the world and the temporal-change perspective.

The Eastern concept of nonduality, as it is conventionally presented,
has nothing to say about time or experiencing time as an illusion.
This is one key difference between West and East. How do Gnosticism
and Neoplatonism, and Eastern nonduality, treat space and time? The
Eastern nonduality emphasizes only spatial merging, while the Western
conceptualization has a distinct time emphasis as well. The Egodeath
theory emphasizes cross-time control, a crucial and predominant aspect
of the mystic altered state about which the nonduality concept usually
says nothing.

People vividly experience the loss of the sense of cross-time control
during the intense mystic altered state, yet the nonduality concept as
it is typically expressed fails to even acknowledge that people in the
altered state are commonly freaking out about the loss of control.
Loss of control is not only “because of nonduality”, loss of control
is effectively caused by considering one’s inability to steer away
from one’s coming future thoughts. Nonduality may be the cause of
one’s metaphysical powerlessness, but our powerlessness to change our
future thoughts is the most ergonomic cause of our fully realizing the
various ramifications of nonduality.

The purportedly sophisticated mystics haven’t effectively provided
this clear perspective, this clear, active model of these dynamic
features of common intense mystic altered-state experiences. People
don’t only experience a harmonious nonduality realization, jumping
instantly from a familiar separate-self configuration to a stable
nondualistic enlightened perspective; people often experience
spacetime embeddedness as a dire problem demanding a solution.

We should not just wave-aside all these trembling ecstatic episodes of
control-instability, puppethood, and frozen unalterable time as “not
the right relation to nonduality”. Doing so would fail to offer a
practical, helpful, relevant, useful, and ergonomic treatment of these
dynamics. These dynamics of grappling with control-over-time are
fascinating to understand, and are a crucial, probably unavoidable,
doorway to pass through, on the way to reconciling one’s mental model
with nonduality.

Buddha touches the ground, dispersing the army of demons and producing
enlightenment.

From my http://www.egodeath.com/EntheogenTheoryOfReligion.htm
>>Solving the problem of true and justified mental order of personal
self-government instead of control-chaos comes through a transcendent
Zen jump. Depending on the egoic system of reasoning, which is
constructed around inherently self-frustrating premises, ultimately
leads to control lock-up and a catastrophically ineffective
self-cancellation of control. Buddha recognized that his destiny was
to touch the ground in an act of compassion and harmonious integration
with the unity of the Ground of Being, causing Mara and his army of
demons to instantly disperse – then he experienced enlightenment.

Simply praising and endorsing nonduality does nothing to address the
huge, urgent, life-threatening problem people often experience.
Everyone’s mind contains this most fascinating potential lying in wait
in the dissociative state: the potential to think of one’s near-future
thoughts as frozen in time, and think of one’s thoughts as given or
forced upon one’s mind by an unfathomable, hidden source outside one’s
domain of control. Any useful discussion of nonduality ought to
address the fact that people often, even typically, experience
nonduality as a terrible and terrifying problem – or that all minds
have this potential to discover such a structural potential, a pit
lying in wait to trap everyone.

Many people praise nonduality and imagine it to consist entirely of
peace and light because they haven’t experienced the problematic
aspects of it. They haven’t experienced Buddha’s being threatened by
Mara and his army of demons; that key moment of enlightenment, with
transformation of attitude, is left out. The result is an incomplete,
happy, and irrelevant version of enlightenment, all happiness and
light – enlightenment lite. Actual intense mystic altered-state
experience is a hardcore ecstatic revolution experience; we all have
that potential, which needs an adequately full exploring and
explaining.

A lightweight one-sided model of mystic-state experiencing is
inadequate for specifically and concretely addressing the terrifying
aspect of the nonduality realization. In practice, nonduality is
often experienced as a huge, terrifying, life-threatening problem; how
exactly can one switch to viewing nonduality as *not* a problem, but
as a resolution or as a better conceptualization?

A typical sequence is that the first few trips or initiation sessions
are experienced as heavenly and blissful; the ego enjoys its feeling
of spatial unity with the rest of the world. In later sessions, the
hell realms and wrathful deities are encountered, during more advanced
phases. The dire problem arises, of the loss of the sensation of
wielding control across time. Nonduality is perceived, and it is
perceived as a threat and a looming disaster; one finds oneself in
dire straits, up a creek without a paddle, tied to the mast and unable
to steer the ship.

How can one resolve the terrifying and wrathful aspects of the
nonduality realization? That’s effectively what the Egodeath theory
addresses. In this sense, nonduality, considered as spatial unity, is
the starting point for the Egodeath theory, not the conclusion of it.
The conclusion of any adequate theory of ego death must include not
only nonduality, but a highly developed explanatory model of the
crisis aspects of comprehending nonduality and its ramifications, and
how, in useful, actionable, practical terms, the mind can work-through
those problematic aspects of encountering nonduality.


The fastest way to grasp the concept of nonduality and its
ramifications is to start with idea of one’s near-future thoughts
being preset and already existing — the idea and feeling of being
forcefully pushed toward whatever one’s thoughts are preset to be a
couple minutes into the future. The preexisting future, ego death,
and nonduality readily fit together, in a mutually supporting,
systematic configuration. The closed and preset future is the
ultimate and final affront to egoic thinking. It’s impossible to
simultaneously hold in mind egoic thinking and the idea of a preset,
unchangeable future.

Nonduality doesn’t conflict with the assertion that the future is
closed, preset, unchangeable, and predetermined. Nonduality isn’t
apathetic and unaffected by the issue. Nonduality necessarily implies
the fixity of the future. Nonduality means there’s no separate,
autonomous power of individual personal agency, thus no individual
personal power exists to have an opportunity to change the future;
therefore, the future is fixed.

There’s no self to be free; there’s no self to cause the future to
change from one outcome to another, or to cause the future to change
from not-yet-defined to a particular outcome. If the future is open
and subject to become one outcome or another, then separate-self (ego)
is real — where ego is considered to be that which controls, affects,
and influences the outcome of the future to be one thing or another.
If ego is not real (substantial), then nothing exists to change the
future from one outcome to a different outcome.

One could jump up a level to assert that the Self exists and wields
the power to change the future, but this is vague, and risks cosmic
ego-inflation (conflating self with Self and projecting dualistic
ego-power upward). Such an upward level-jump may amount to the same
thing as jumping transcendently from level 2 to 3 in the 3-level
Western system which is centered around discovering the convincing
idea (and sensation) of timeless determinism. To assert that there’s
no separate-self to change the future, but that Self or the Ground of
Being is that which has the power to change the future from one
outcome to another, is largely equivalent to asserting that God rules
over Fate.

In moving from the naive, pre-initiation mental model to the
fixed-future model, ego is killed, cancelled out, done away with; then
in moving from timeless determinism to the transcendent spiritual
realm, a kind of freedom returns, no longer with the ego delusion.
The latter jump is to transcend Necessity (Heimarmene, Fatum). Per
the early Catholic world-changing strategy, that should not be
considered as a jump completely away from the world, but rather, a way
of bringing the proper, harmonious, divine ordering of things into the
entire world.


Declaring that the Self has the power to change the future or to
resolve the open future, or declaring that one’s spiritual self has
transcended cosmic Heimarmene, is a rationality-transcending,
ultra-transcendent idea, thus elusive and undefinable — as is the
very idea of “the open future” or, by the same token, “the free person
who determines their own destiny”. In the competitive battle of the
Catholic taken-over Jewish God against Roman imperial theology, it was
inevitable that God would be declared the masterful controller of all
the world, even ruling over Heimarmene/Fatum. In contrast, myths
waffle on whether Zeus (Jupiter) was subject to Heimarmene or ruler
over Heimarmene.

A main practical advantage of the fixed-future model is that it is
extremely definite and concrete, providing a tangible framework to
bring about an egodeath climax. The shortest path to short-circuiting
ego-power is to envision the fixed-future block universe, and consider
the nullity which the fixed-future idea implies for personal
control-power. The fixed-future block universe is fully compatible
with various aspects of experience and reason. It’s not that we can
prove that the future is in fact fixed; rather, we discover that it is
fully possible and easy, even natural, to adopt the mental model of
the fixed-future block universe and, as an immediate result, or as a
co-arising sensation, experience personal control-power as null.

The reality is not that there’s a separate-self ego who is pushed
around by frozen-time determinism, but rather, nonduality governed by
frozen-time determinism — which *does* push around the entire
universe, including the individual person, even though the individual
person isn’t really a separate-self. Nonduality might solve the
separate-self problem by deleting that belief, but still, the person
— whatever their nature — remains pushed around by determinism with
a pre-set, pre-existing, frozen future (whether you consider the
person a separate self, or a component of the nondual ground of
being).

In some sense, we are autonomous separate selves, we *are* an
autonomous separate-self ego that finds itself pushed around by
frozen-time determinism.

Is the ego null because of nonduality, or because of the frozenness of
the future? The egodeath theory weds nonduality to the frozen future,
not in order to make the frozen future the basis on which nonduality
stands or falls, but rather, because the frozenness of the future is
experientially reported, and because that mental model ergonomically
closes off the main escape route that protectively props up egoic
thinking – an escape route that is effectively closed-off by building
upon the sensation of the closed and unavoidable, unchangeable future
lying ahead on one’s fixed path of control-related thoughts.

Altered-state (ASC)-based lyrics include:

The future pre-decided, opinions are provided

I couldn’t change a doggone thing, not what I’d do or say


There are changes
Lying ahead in every road
And there are new thoughts
Ready and waiting to explode

When tomorrow is today
The bells may toll for some
But nothing can change the shape of things to come

The future’s coming in, now
Sweet and strong
Ain’t no-one gonna hold it back for long


If the separate self is not free, but is nonexistent due to
nonduality, then the future is utterly unchangeable by separate
selves. Time is experienced as unreal or illusory in the dissociative
cognitive state. If time is illusory and people have no power to
change the future, then the future is fixed, preset, unchangeable,
predetermined, and timelessly already exists. The sense of each of
these terms, such as “illusory” and “already exists”, is subject to
proper suitable definition, to hold this theory framework together.

Why do people assume that the block universe is entirely different
than nonduality? Nonduality and the block universe are the same
thing, except that the block-universe model explicitly holds the
future pre-set, while nonduality is silent on that point, idea, or
sensation. The modern Eastern nonduality system is a 2-level system,
which basically maps to the lower levels of the 3-level Western scheme
and path to Gnosis and celestial redemption. Folk shamanic Buddhism
(Vajrayana Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism) is probably more potent and
relevant than modern American, predominantly ordinary-state-based
(OSC-based) Eastern religion.

The conceptual construct of the block universe is justifiably
prominent in the Egodeath theory, serving to elicit and explain some
of the most powerful, overpowering potential dynamics to be discovered
in the bona fide intense dissociative cognitive state. Block-universe
theory, which fits with the nonduality model, is required for a truly
hardcore, Heavy Metal, street-level, military-grade, seaworthy, and
road-tested Initiation Theory. An emphasis on frozen-future
block-universe determinism should not alienate those who are familiar
with models of enlightenment centered on nonduality.

The block universe idea amounts to having a theory of time; the
nonduality idea amounts to not having a theory of time, or of personal
control over time. Nonduality is essentially the space component of
block-universe determinism, without a time component. Much of the
interesting area of the egodeath theory is along the time axis —
control along the time axis, and control agency power along the time
axis. The control-over-time factor is interesting in terms of the
control-related content of intense experiencing, and in terms of novel
Theory of mystic-state enlightenment and experiential revelation
(novel, and yet strangely familiar in deep Western religious
consciousness).

If Alan Watts says “it’s not a matter of determinism pushing puppet
around, but rather, nonduality”, he’s just waving-aside the
control-over-time problem, and the problematic aspect of realizing
nonduality. The block-universe idea is the most tangible way of
expressing nonduality, or key ramifications of nonduality which help
comprehend nonduality in its full ramifications. The block universe
is nonduality, or fits deeply into it; it’s the same essential idea,
but the block universe idea emphasizes unchanging timeless spacetime
frozenness, while nonduality emphasizes spatial merging including that
of the agent considered as a spatial entity.

Nonduality omits the time axis considerations entirely; it is
comparable to how the determinism-glorifying mystic Ramesh Balsekar
focuses entirely on time, control, and determinism and omits spatial
merging and transcendence of determinism. Balsekar’s determinism
alone, or the idea of nonduality in isolation, are highly incomplete,
because they don’t address or acknowledge as relevant the severely
problematic, spiritual emergency crisis aspects of experiencing
nonduality or determinism.

Nonduality is a simpler, fewer-level view than block-universe
determinism; it’s merely 2-dimensional instead of fully fleshed-out.
Religious theory which is narrowed and reduced to the isolated
nonduality idea is less mature, less experienced, and less seaworthy
than the more multidimensional, block-universe model; especially the
nonduality created by entheogen-diminishers, or thinking in which the
OSC is predominant. Nonduality is the beginning of wisdom, and
perhaps the end and final destination, but the middle part of the
journey is where the crucial action happens and where an adequate,
full-fledged, fully fleshed-out model of transformative grappling with
personhood-ideas is urgently needed as the make-or-break factor.

The middle, peak part of the transformation saga has to be addressed;
it’s where the problems and exciting action are. The initiate goes
from naive assumption of duality (the complacent separate-self
delusion), to unproblematic nonduality (the first, pleasant intuitions
and glimpses and experiential sensations of nonduality), to severely
problematic nonduality (the hell realms, nonduality as a death-threat
and psychotic insanity or trans-sanity risk), to finally, a resolved,
harmonious, peaceful reconciliation with nonduality.

Initially, everyone is disparagingly dismissive of this drama, and
overconfidently thinks we can just skip this drama and go straight to
right relationship with nonduality – “the problem is just an illusion
that one must make disappear by realizing nonduality”. Everyone
starts out so naive and inexperienced, but the beginning initiates are
not fit to be a captain and guide on the rough, unpredictable seas of
the intense dissociative cognitive state. Those beginners who
foolhardily overestimate their perspicuity and wisdom appreciate
neither the threat of wrath nor the precious value of transcendent,
divine compassion – they know only a shadow of wrath and a shadow of
what mystic compassion is really about.

Before the need for the compassionate is appreciated, the wrathful
must first be encountered, reconciled and appeased, must be fed its
sacrifice. This doesn’t mean that each person in the future must
fully experience firsthand the control-destabilization potential which
everyone’s mind contains as a fascinating dynamic – but that each
person must be ready to anticipate such a possibility, and must be
taught the precautionary measures, of readiness to sacrifice one’s
claim to autonomous self-government power, and readiness to rely fully
upon that which controls one’s thoughts, ready to assume – with no
rational reason or basis – that that which gives one their thoughts is
trustworthy.

The Egodeath theory takes seriously the intensely experienced problem
of nonduality’s destabilization of control. The Egodeath theory
effectively addresses this most profound crisis-potential and solves
it in a reconstructed classic fashion, but an upgraded systematic,
explicit, modern fashion. A relevant system of religion must not deny
such destabilization or mutely wave it aside as not the right attitude
toward nonduality, but rather, must explain its nature and solution.

Nonduality is in some sense the solution, and also the problem or
cause of the sensation of personal non-control. But to merely and
solely proffer nonduality as the cause of noncontrol and the solution
to noncontrol, and stop the discussion there, is too vague to be
relevant to actual mystic experiencing out in the wild, out in the
field, on the battlefield, on the streets, or on the rough ocean.
Buddhism without the threat of a battle against Mara is a modern-era
construct, which is to say an OSC-based construct, which merely
amounts to immature and inexperienced religion.

It’s not that the fixed-future block universe idea is present instead
of nonduality, as the center of the religious transformation; rather,
the most direct, fast, and repeatable system of religious
transformation makes the full block-universe model explicit, instead
of focusing only on the nonduality principle. Perhaps nonduality is
true and the fixed-future is an untrue postulate. Even that situation
would not permit us to say that nonduality is relevant while the block
universe (implying fixed future) is irrelevant.

As far as the rapid triggering and eliciting of ego death is
concerned, the fixed-future block universe is, true or not, more
relevant in more ways than nonduality. In effect, the fixed-future
block universe idea is *more functionally relevant* (even if a mere
postulate) and is a superset of the nonduality idea. Certainly, the
idea and sensation of nonduality is relevant to the intense
mystic-state transformation of one’s mental model of self. However,
the fixed-future block universe, whether considered an axiom or
postulate, is an idea and sensation that is a superset of nonduality,
and has broader, more comprehensive relevance experientially and
phenomenologically.

The establishment pop Buddhists might dislike how the theory doesn’t
use their exact conceptual categories, terminology, and value-scheme.
But their system isn’t necessarily authentic Buddhism; nondualist
modern pop Buddhism isn’t necessarily authentic satori-based Buddhism.
Similarly, Alan Watts is a valuable bridge between half-clear and
half-systematic religious theory and a full systematic development of
his cybernetics ideas, but his explanations are far from the last
word.

One might object that “the world is nondual, but don’t commit to it
being specifically a block universe” — but the block universe,
whether true or not, is the most tangible way to drive home and convey
idea of nonduality. The block universe idea contains the idea of
nonduality.


Nonduality tries to affirm freedom, even if it’s not freedom of the
separate-self individual, but freedom of the Ground of Being itself.
The egodeath theory doesn’t merely deny the ego’s freedom, it denies
the Self’s freedom — the ground of being’s freedom, at least as an
effective means, for a time. Per the Egodeath theory, the frozen
block universe is specifically the *crystalline* ground of being, not
just the Wilber and Watts “ground of being” conceptualization where
the openness of the future is left implicit. Pop Eastern religion
envisions a Ground of Being that’s assumed to have a free, open
future, while Western religion envisions a Ground of Being with an
unfree, closed future – unless one jumps up to the spiritual realm
that transcends cosmic Heimarmene.

The question always returns, “Freedom in what sense?” and “Who or what
is free, in what way?” Nonduality is usually thought of as a
non-fixed Ground of Being with an open future – such a version of the
nonduality idea is a way of trying to sneak-in egoic thinking by
transferring it to the world at large. If the Ground of Being might
not have an open future, such an upward-vicarious freedom and
empowerment is at risk for the person. The popular nondual Ground of
Being conception omits the time and heimarmene factor, leaving it
implicit, thus leaving freedom implicitly affirmed, which the ego then
escapes upward into: “I don’t exist as a separate self; I’m the
universe and have complete control over the future of everything in
it,” just as the lunatic realizes.

Declaring the separate-self to be null and illusory, and then moving
one’s self-identification upward to the Self, and considering that
Self to wield control over the future, doesn’t solve the question of
time and power, but rather, ignores that question. That’s why the
idea of nonduality without a model of control-over-time is an
immature, oversimplified version of religious transformation. A
system of religion that is based solely around nonduality as the
reason for personal powerlessness, without addressing the question of
control-over-time, simply assumes that the future is open and there’s
no problem — it’s vague, undefined, complicated, and unresolved;
whereas the block-universe is simple, specific, directly addresses
these aspects.

Does Wilber & Watts’ conception of the “Ground of Being” assume an
open future? If so, egoic thinking uses that as a place to hide. The
ego is that which controls and incrementally closes the future. If
there’s no ego — if the world is nondual — there is no separate self
to help close incrementally the future. If no selves exist to control
the future, then the future is beyond controllability, and thus is
closed. It’s the OSC fallacy that leads to the assumption the future
is open in itself; it’s a short jump from there to the continued,
comfortable assumption of autonomous personal power.

Western pre-modern religion assumes that the future is closed, per
cosmic Heimarmene, whereas pop Eastern religion unthinkingly assumes
the future is open, without discussing the issue and ramifications for
personal power. The conventional version of the nonduality idea
explicitly declares spatial unity, but implicitly assumes
unproblematic temporal openness. The shadow-ego is still lurking in
the works, covertly imagined as that which has the power to close and
resolve whether the future is outcome A or B.

Nonduality is grossly incomplete and inadequate to maturation; it’s
too vague, and leaves out too many aspects. An oversimplified model
of mystic-state religious experiencing results; an inarticulate theory
that is irrelevant and useless when the chips come down and
crisis-questions threateningly loom. Nonduality is true but is
incomplete as a practical model and system of religious mental-model
transformation.

The universe might or might not be a frozen, “crystalline Ground of
Being” block-universe. But what urgently matters to actual initiates
in the heat of the ecstatic state is the experiential phenomenology
that occurs by mentally working or manipulating the *model* and
*sensation* of frozen-future “crystalline Ground of Being”
block-universe.

The Egodeath theory addresses that relevant phenomenology and urgent,
pressing dynamics; Western religion addresses it; Tibetan shamanism
addresses it; the Buddha appeasing the threat of Mara and his army of
demons addresses it; but modern pop Eastern “spirituality” – glossy
magazine Buddhism – is a lightweight poser which doesn’t address those
dynamics, and has nothing to say, and is useless for the heat of the
transformation battle.

Pop Eastern religion wants an open future so that the egoic thinking
and the egoic power-assumption can hide there. Egoic thinking is
simply moved onto the world at large; “I’m not free, I don’t exist,
but I am the world, the world is free” — this is what Ken Wilber
describes as narcissistic ego-inflation amplified to the cosmic scale;
“I am separate and egoically free and power-wielding” becomes “I am
the world, which is egoically free and power-wielding”.

Pop Eastern religion is speechless regarding the frozen-future
component of theory — they’ve no doctrines there, only unexamined
assumptions, which are shaken in the actual experience of a series of
intense initiations, which OSC-based pop Buddhism is utterly
unprepared to address, since it hasn’t incorporated the egodeath
theory nor ASC-based folk wisdom with its myth-using techniques of
honoring and thus placating the wrathful deities and humbly invoking
the compassionate deities for protection.


The future is frozen and already exists; it is unchangeable. That
postulate can be considered overkill for the purpose of
working-through egodeath — even if so, overkill has perfect,
appropriate ergonomic utility, here. Does Buddhism say the future is
frozen and closed, or open? It’s silent. Watts doesn’t deny that
determinism is the case; he denies a combination, that “a separate ego
pushed around by determinism” is the case. Watts says “It’s not that
there’s a separate ego pushed around like puppet by determinism, but
instead, there’s nonduality.”

Watts merely denies or evades a certain reading of determinism
regarding the separate self. He re-reads determinism as nonduality,
as though nonduality replaces and excludes determinism. Watts thus
dances around rather than engages the issue in a sustained fashion.
This vague and ambiguous evasiveness of Watts is shocking — his
sloppy, careless, linguistically fumbling manner of theorizing in The
Way of Zen. He’s a fairly good mystic philosopher, but a bad
systematic linguistic analytic philosopher. The Egodeath theory
largely originated as a project of straightening-out the messy parts
of Watts’ explanations.

Watts’ move is “not determinism-and-ego, but rather, nonduality”. He
should instead say “It’s not that there is an ego separate from
determinism, pushed around by it, but rather, there is determinism and
nonduality”. There is no ego pushed around by determinism, a closed
future, frozen time, and the block universe — not because there’s no
determinism or the future is open and changeable, but rather, because
there’s no dualistic ego; there’s only determinism & the closed
future”. The choice is between ego and nonduality, not a choice
between determinism (or, closed future) and nonduality.

Watts lumps together ego and determinism, then dismisses ego,
pretending to at same time dismiss determinism and a closed future.
Actually, the closed future remains, along with nonduality, while ego
leaves (departing to Hades, the land of shadows). Watts says: Not ego
pushed around by determinism, but rather, nonduality is the reality.
Against Watts’ misleading formulation: actually, nonduality and
determinism is the reality, not ego and determinism.

It’s not the case that the ego exists and is pushed around by
frozen-time determinism; rather, there’s nonduality governed by
frozen-time determinism. Ego is essentially unreal, but that doesn’t
mean that determinism – which seems to push around the ego – is
unreal. ‘Determinism’ here means vertical timeless determinism, not
only in-time domino-chain determinism.


If there are no separate selves, the future is not affect by separate
selves — thus no agency exists that could change the future, thus the
future is preset and already always timelessly exists, unchangeably.

It’s reasonable to object to the Egodeath theory’s clear idea that the
future already exists. People concede that the fixed-future postulate
would kill ego power (even if nonduality already is sufficient, in
itself, to kill ego, in principle), but people rightly question
whether the highly specific fixed-future assumption makes
enlightenment and transcendent truth unnecessarily dependent on a
metaphysics-of-time assertion. Perhaps the sequence of reasoning and
causal reasoning is out-of-order: is ego unreal because the future is
fixed, or because of nonduality? (This objection is similar to how
the Egodeath theory rejects the current notion of how determinism
works, or about why the future is fixed — the currently predominant
view says the future is fixed *because* there’s a causal chain across
time.)

Ego is unreal “because of” nonduality, but the way to heighten the
problematic dynamics of ego is to consider the fixed-future model of
spacetime. We have to consider the fixed-future idea because the
control-dynamics resulting from that mental model act as a strange
attractor lurking as a potential discovery to deal with in everyone’s
mind. Ego becomes experienced as powerless and then dies “because of”
nonduality and – in a slightly different sense – “because of” the
control-seizure induced by envisioning a fixed future in one’s
near-future stream of control-thoughts.

Why should the person trust the ground of being? What should you do
if you find you don’t trust it, and hit a crisis? The pop idea of
nonduality doesn’t address this; the Egodeath theory does, in classic
form, reconstructed and updated in a systematic, explicit, efficient,
late-modern fashion.


Brian wrote (edited):
>>If you don’t like your fate, or if you’re apprehensive of what it
might be, or you find fatedness untrustworthy and untrustable, then in
order to retain some sort of mental stability, you have to postulate
something higher than fate, or postulate something that can change
your fate somehow and then somehow trust *that* — somehow trusting
that higher-than-fate thing that’s in a position to change your fate.
Group: egodeath Message: 4536 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 03/10/2006
Subject: Re: Nonduality, pre-set future in block universe
The block universe is an allegorical or visualization mechanism for
implying fate; it is valuable and useful as a mythic, expedient
device. A scientific theory of ego death should be centered upon an
explicit description of the concept of fate and integration of ideas
about personal control-power, while also explaining and utilizing
mythic constructions for vivid clarification.

Putting forward the model of the world as a block universe doesn’t
make enlightenment dependent on a metaphysics-of-time assertion, but
explains the phenomenological experiencing around which the ego death
experience naturally builds up the fastest. The block-time model and
its concomitant perspective on ego death is an effective mythical
device, and might not be logically a necessary postulate, but is
practically relevant, useful, and effective.

Subjective block-time experiences are common, effective, and
efficient, even if they are not logically necessary to experience ego
death. Statements like “The future is frozen and already exists,
unchangeable” are stating, in an explained mythical fashion, that fate
(determinism, Heimarmene) implies a closed future.

Fate inherently has time ramifications. A clear explanation of Fate
and nonduality is required for facilitating ego death experiences. A
clear explanation of Fate requires exploring the time-related
ramifications of fatedness, such as the inability to forcibly control
one’s thoughts which are coming in the next couple minutes. Fate has
ego-killing implications of the block-time model, nonduality, and
determinism (Heimarmene/Fatum).

Trusting the Ground is part of fully understanding Fate and allowing
the Ground to live through one’s innermost thoughts, including
personal control thoughts. During a rich series of mystic
altered-state sessions that fully explore the relation of self and
Tao, this relation is experienced both as the mind-integrating,
nondual way of spontaneous freedom in perfect harmonious relationship
with the Ground (Tao, Nature), and is also vividly experienced as the
humbling act of trust in the Ground, Tao, or Nature. A full
first-hand understanding requires familiarity with handling both
points of view, and various aspects of this relationship.

One must somehow fully realize that the flow of the Tao is what
manifests each of one’s thoughts; no matter which way you move your
thoughts, you can’t help but manifest the Tao, which flows everywhere.
This has some alarming ramifications of oneself from the point of view
of egoic control and self-protection of one’s personal control power.
Group: egodeath Message: 4537 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 03/10/2006
Subject: Re: Bk: Ken Wilber: Integral Spirituality
I added the following introduction, to form my review I posted to
Amazon.


Integral Spirituality: A Startling New Role for Religion in the Modern
and Postmodern World
by Ken Wilber
http://amazon.com/o/asin/1590303466
Oct. 3, 2006

4 stars
Integral Theory, with some application to spirituality


The book mostly presents a theory of how to theorize about
spirituality, rather than simply delivering a direct theory of
spirituality. By this late stage, we must set high standards for
Wilber to meet, for the content of his theory and his presentation of
it. This presentation is not as condensed, polished, and finished as
one would expect from the expert on integral spirituality; it’s a
hashing-out of a rebuttal to one aspect of postmodernism, and a
repeated urging to take that one aspect into consideration. It has an
unbalanced emphasis on “the myth of the given”, as though the only
aspect of postmodernism to think about is how mystic experiencing is
shaped largely by cultural factors. The presentation gives the sense
Wilber is still in the midst of working-out these ideas; we’ll have to
wait for someone else to boil down his top-heavy use of jargon into
plain-spoken English in a balanced, polished presentation with
straightforward subheadings.

Instead of providing a clear and useful explanation of mystic-state
phenomenology, he fills page after page with discussion of “the myth
of the given”. The “integral theory” part of the book threatens to
obscure and eliminate the “spirituality” topic proper; the title word
‘Integral’ gets more emphasis than ‘Spirituality’. The result is
surprisingly heavy in hashing-out general theory of how to be
integral, and light in specifically religious-transformation theory.

Group: egodeath Message: 4538 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 28/03/2007
Subject: Time is right for political anti-empire reading of New Testament
There is a recent wave, and likely future wave, of books astutely
recognizing the political meaning of the New Testament in its Roman
Empire context. Ken Humphreys’ recent radio interview expresses the
hope that Jesus’ ahistoricity will correct recent Neoconservative
Christian Right political errors. But Ken (
http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/NextLevelOct06.mp3 ) doesn’t spell
out how this connection is supposed to be made. He sticks to the
go-nowhere shallow Atheist move of “Christianity isn’t true; rather,
it is false, because Jesus didn’t exist” — leaving out the huge
useful political meaning of the New Testament.

The simplistic Atheist position that “The New Testament is false” is
false, clueless, irrelevant, blind — a self-defeating move where
Atheists instead strategically ought to be harnessing the substantial,
relevant meaning that is present in the New Testament, as a weapon
against the recent modern invention of Evangelicalism (the Christian
Right). The New Testament is not simply “false”; it is packed full of
meaning — socio-political meaning and mystic altered-state meaning,
as intertwining metaphors, meaning which usefully contradicts the
recently fabricated Evangelical Christian Right. The actual meaning
of the New Testament is potentially a stab to the heart of the recent
social construct of the Christian Right.

The recent and coming wave of books which explain and reveal the
political meaning of the New Testament provide exactly what Atheist
debunkers need, particularly those who are disgusted with the gullible
voters — including supposedly informed and educated neighbors, peers,
and fellow citizens — who voted for Bush and his administration twice
in a row.


Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious
Revolutionary
by Marcus J. Borg
http://amazon.com/o/asin/0060594454
Oct 2006
Urges reading the NT as metaphorical political meaning rather than
literalist religious/spiritual reading, though he continues to take
for granted that Jesus and Paul are historical figures. Notably, and
unusually for a political reading of the NT, he emphasizes Jesus as
grounded in mystic altered-state experiential knowledge of God and
God’s ways toward kingdom or kingship of God on Earth

Saving Christianity From Empire
by Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer
http://amazon.com/o/asin/0826416276
Feb 2005
Urges to choose peace-oriented variants of political themes from the
Bible and be wary of the violence-oriented thematic variants in the
Bible

The Politics of Jesus: Rediscovering the True Revolutionary Nature of
Jesus’ Teachings and How They Have Been Corrupted
by Obery M. Hendricks Jr.
http://amazon.com/o/asin/0385516649
Aug 2006

My article outline:
The New Testament as It Was Originally Understood: The King on the
Cross in the Context of the Roman Empire
http://www.egodeath.com/NTKingOnCrossInRomanEmpire.htm
Includes bibliography

My book list:
Christianity as sociopolitical rebuttal to Caesar’s system
http://www.amazon.com/Christianity-sociopolitical-rebuttal-Caesars-sys
tem/lm/ZVUAJGQU6FAJ

Paul: In Fresh Perspective
by N. T. Wright
http://amazon.com/o/asin/0800637666
Jan 2006
Wright has become enthusiastic about Richard Horsley’s work on the
Roman Empirial context of Christian origins (the political
meaning-context of New Testament), but while his attention is turned
to that, he is blind to metaphorical description of mystic
altered-state experiential phenomena such as “sacrificial death of
one’s own claim of being an autonomous self-governing agency”.

Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11: A Call to Reflection and
Action
by David Ray Griffin
http://amazon.com/o/asin/0664231179
Jul 2006
I was up in a skyscraper the morning of 9/11, heard about it as it
happened, and thought it an inside-job conspiracy from the first
instant. The corporate-owned news media only dishes-out simple,
official cover stories — propaganda permitting only a narrow range of
supposed critical thinking. Everything in the media, the entirety of
pop politics and worldview, is a sham, a distracting smokescreen
diverting attention away from the real motives, objectives, and mode
of operation. Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn are a reasonable starting
point for considering what is really happening and why. Atheist
debunkers of the historicity of Jesus and Paul aren’t nearly radical
enough; the New Testament rightly understood is more radical than
merely saying “Christianity and the NT are false, because Jesus and
Paul didn’t exist.”


These types of books provide the perfect and relevant missing
connections needed by Ken Humphreys, Christianity “debunkers” (a
terribly self-limiting notion), and despisers of the dissimulating
Bush administration. Merely saying “Jesus didn’t exist, so Christian
politics should change” is far too vague; these books provide the
missing connections, although scholars aren’t done and don’t actually
grasp the meaning of the New Testament until they also factor in the
intertwining, in the New Testament and Greco-Roman culture, of
political metaphors and visionary-plant induced altered-state
experiential metaphors.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 4539 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 28/03/2007
Subject: Re: Time is right for political anti-empire reading of New Testament
>>How can understanding the political and visionary-plant induced
altered-state experiential metaphors in the New Testament be
specifically valuable toward defeating the Neoconservative Christian
Right?

>>Is ancient, drug-induced mysticism relevant to today’s culture?

>>What value is there in the anti-imperialism of a bygone age other
than as a footnote in history?

>>If the Christian movement has a godhead that is a delusion, is it
feasible to harness the Christian movement for an enlightened
liberalism?

>>Is there anything to be harnessed in the New Testament as originally
read around the time of canon formation, toward doing away with the
Neocon Christian Right and bringing in liberalism instead?


The neocon Christian Right is premised on the belief that they are
founded on the New Testament per its original meaning. It is possible
to prove that the original meaning of the New Testament is different
than the New Testament interpretation held by the neocon Christian
Right; for example, the New Testament does not put the emphasis on
individual ethics so much as collective social ethics, compassion for
others. The New Testament is more concerned with bringing the kingdom
of God than with how we individually go to heaven after we die.

Instead of the strategy of proving that the New Testament, taken
literally, is false, there is more to be gained by focusing on what
the New Testament *did* mean. It is possible and would be powerful to
prove that the New Testament (taken as a whole, an intended collection
of re-edited and collated works) meant something other than what the
neocon Christian Right has taken it to mean. A focus on *meaning* and
intent, and how that meaning contradicts today’s recent misreading of
the New Testament, goes further than merely showing today’s meaning
(literalism) to be false, in isolation.

A *contrast* is more powerful than a negation, given that what’s being
contrasted is the book (collection) which Evangelicals claim and
believe to be the foundation of their religious system. Instead of
atheist negation of the literalist view of Evangelicals regarding
their literature, use ju jitsu; use their own claims of being founded
on the New Testament against them — because that, they are committed
to paying attention to. Modern-era atheism has died along with the
modern era; instead, go back to the original cultural, socio-political
setting (and mystery-religion setting) that gave rise to this
collection of writings. Use the Evangelists’ reasoning, their
foundational use of the New Testament, against them.

Atheism — a mere negation — cannot kill Evangelicalism; only the New
Testament, actually understood per the original overall intent, can
kill Evangelicalism. Only the foundational Christian text can kill
Christianity. The New Testament contains essential untapped resources
that Atheism must fully utilize if Atheism is ever to inflict any
damage on Christianity. The only thing that can kill today’s
Christianity is the New Testament, rightly understood and explained,
by an Atheism that is fully informed by the recognition of mystic
altered-state metaphor and by Roman-era, pre-modern socio-political
metaphor. There are strategies other than simple polar oppositions.

The old strategy of Atheism versus Evangelicalism is a go-nowhere
strategy; it is limited. Acharya’s harsh opposition to Christianity,
a negation approach, resonates with many people, but it can only go so
far; it cannot inflict a fatal wound. A fully informed contrastive
approach is the only approach that will make a difference to
Evangelicalism, which is founded on the assumption that Evangelicalism
reflects the meaning of the New Testament. Contrast the actual
original overall intent of the New Testament to the obvious misreading
that Evangelicalism strives to use as its foundation.

The New Testament can’t be taken away from Evangelicalism merely by
showing that the New Testament, when misread in a literalist sense, is
untrue; the New Testament foundation can only be taken away from
Evangelicalism — can only be pulled out from under Evangelicalism —
by showing that the New Testament, when read in the original overall
sense, is in contradiction of the recent modern-era literalist and
out-of–context misreading of the New Testament.

Effectively undermining Evangelicalism requires showing that the New
Testament meant a social-political alternative system (alternative to
the Roman Empire or to domination systems in general), and that the
New Testament utilized mystery-religion metaphorical description of
the visionary plant-induced mystic dissociative state of
consciousness. Show that the New Testament meant those, and did not
mean modern-era individual piety and going to heaven after literal
bodily death — such a meaning-shifting, an increased attention paid
to the meaning of the New Testament, is really the only way to
effectively disprove and debilitate the foundation of Evangelicalism.

The New Testament books began with their own individual various
meanings, in their original form, but what matters most is the
collation and revision of those to form a purposeful whole, the New
Testament, to support the project of creating a powerful alternative
government by the time of Constantine.

Step 1 in dismantling modern-era Evangelicalism is to have the most
accurate grasp possible of the formation of the New Testament, and
what it meant in its era — what the individual books originally
meant, why they were adjusted and revised, and what the objectives of
the New Testament collection were, together with the elite
ruling-class bishops and house-church gatherings. The truth is
powerful, and there is more to the truth about Christianity and the
New Testament than the fact of Jesus’ and Paul’s ahistoricity. The
ahistoricity of Jesus and Paul is merely the starting point, for
gaining the weapon of a penetrating grasp of the New Testament.

Ancient anti-imperialism in the Bible, and ancient drug use for
visionary experiences as reflected in the Bible, are relevant in this
late-modern era largely in that today’s Evagelicalism claims and
believes it is founded on the New Testament’s meaning. The meaning of
the New Testament is crucially important to refuting Evangelicalism,
because Evangelicalism believes itself to be founded on the New
Testament’s meaning. Evangelicalism misconstrues its godhead as a
literal historical individual (Jesus) who gives the individual a way
to go to heaven after they die bodily, instead of going to hell after
they die bodily.

The problem isn’t that Evangelicals are deluded to believe in their
godhead; the problem is that Evangelicals completely misconstrue the
nature of their godhead, because they largely lack the visionary-plant
induced altered state which was the foundation of pre-modern religious
metaphorical figuration, and they largely lack the connection between
their modern drug experiences and that pre-modern mode of thinking,
and because they lack the awareness of the Roman Imperial
social-political context in which the New Testament arose. Even
scholars lacked awareness of the latter until around 1981. The
political context of the New Testament is the hottest topic now in New
Testament studies.

To talk about the New Testament, and debunking it, without having a
firm grasp of the political meaning-context of the New Testament, is
to talk about something one doesn’t understand — resulting in a mere
negation of the historical Jesus. A mere negation isn’t as powerful
as an alternative, contrastive way of reading the New Testament.
Negating Jesus’ historicity doesn’t bring the understanding of the New
Testament which is necessary to disprove the entire foundation of
Evangelicalism. The foundation of Evangelicalism is not merely Jesus’
historicity; rather, the foundation of Evangelicalism is an entire
manner of (mis-) reading the New Testament, including what kind of
writing it is, what its main purposes are, and what it meant to its
original audiences.

Disproving Jesus’ historicity only kicks out 1 supporting beam; the
resilient structure stands. Don’t underestimate the resilience of a
mental world-model, such as how Evangelicalism thinks about the New
Testament as the foundation of the Evangelical religion. There’s a
lot more work to do that merely negating the Jesus component of the
New Testament, before the foundation is knocked out from under the
Evangelicalist religion. The Evangelicalist religion believes it is
based on the New Testament, but it can be shown that the
Evangelicalist religion is based on a gross misreading of the New
Testament.

The books I’ve pointed to provide the ammunition to show that
Christianity was not founded by a single historical figure, and was
not focused on how individuals go to heaven after they die bodily, but
was a result of other forces and sources, and was focused on bringing
an egalitarian version of “the kingdom of God”, bolstered by communal
altered-state experiences of unity-consciousness and mixtures of
political and mystery-religion metaphorical figurations.
Group: egodeath Message: 4540 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 28/03/2007
Subject: Re: Time is right for political anti-empire reading of New Testament
Modern-style atheists who have animosity toward Christianity are
uninterested in strategically leveraging any content in early
Christianity to correct the errors of contemporary popular
Christianity, because they are already committed to entirely
disparaging and ridiculing and “disproving” Christianity in an
all-or-nothing binary fashion.

Language and concepts have more than simply binary potential. A
better answer to “Are you a Christian?” than “Yes” or “No” is, “There
are various kinds of Christians; I am a certain kind of Christian.”

The Egodeath theory is a partial ally of modern-era atheism and the
latter’s manner of “debunking” (as they put it) Jesus’ historicity.
The charter of the Jesus Mysteries discussion group rejects framing a
debate in terms of attempting to answer “Yes” or “No” regarding Jesus’
historicity. Instead, discussion is in terms of identifying the
details of how the Jesus figure and early Christianity was formed, in
its variety and various origins.

A typical atheist approach is to put forward alternative explanations
for the formation of the Jesus figure, other than a single historical
individual of the received type, with a distinct lackadaisical
attitude toward the alternative: There was no historical Jesus; Jesus
was “nothing but merely” astrotheology, or nothing but merely a
mushroom, or nothing but merely an earlier Dead Sea teacher. Atheists
typically latch onto these dispassionate “nothing but” approaches,
that inherently miss the potentially worthwhile and interesting
substance of Christian origins, particularly the anti-imperial
movement and the metaphorical description of dissociative-state
experiential phenomena that are induced by visionary plants.
Group: egodeath Message: 4541 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 28/03/2007
Subject: Re: 1-year break from Egodeath research
I’ve lost the time between Thanksgiving Nov. 24, 2006 to today due to
an injury similar to Arnold S’. I was finally able to put up
Christmas lights last week. I am accustomed to being strong and
capable — I’ve invested time and identity in that — and was unhappy
to the point of feeling dead. I acheived some of my goals for my
break from Theory of Religion, but at a slow rate.

During my years of research 1985-2006, I put off many things, in order
to formulate an ultimate, complete Theory of religious experiential
insight and be the first to publish it. I’m glad to find that I have
no problem and am fully willing now to take care of those things I had
to put off and sacrifice for an extended period to achieve that goal.

I still need a year to catch up on the things I’ve put off while
raising this child, which is to say, while racing to conceptually
complete my Theory of religious experiential insight and be the first
to make it available. If I take an additional 1 year of hiatus from
the theory of religious experiential insight, that would mean
beginning work on my book on March 27, 2008 and perhaps resuming
weblog posting then.


I continue to be surprised that the project of completing or “closing”
the Theory, and writing-up an accessible summary, eventually did come
to a finish. I came to doubt that I’d ever feel that the Theory was
complete and that the article summarizing it would ever say all the
points that really needed to be said. It was the hardest article to
write, or a suitably unique kind of theory-specification summary
rather than a conventional “article”.

I essentially work alone as an independent scholar, insofar as such is
possible, and I will always remember the productive and challenging
collaboration with Eugene G. and James O., which took my over the
hardest part: packing-in the final 15% of key points resulting from
the very act of working on the article, while alternating with
violently tearing-out as many words as possible to force the length
down to an ideal size.

I am currently working on making available a bound printed color copy
of the main article,
The Entheogen Theory of Religion and Ego Death
http://www.egodeath.com/EntheogenTheoryOfReligion.htm


Only after the final article was sent off, did I muse that I still had
not detailed how early Christians, in the New Testament
canon-formation era, thought of the figure of Jesus — what did the
figure of Jesus mean to them, from the overall point of view of the
New Testament taken as a whole? How did the redactors who formed the
canonical New Testament generally intend for people to think about the
figure of Jesus; what did they — not the “original authors” — want
the figure of Jesus, such as the king-claimant on a cross, to mean?
My work on that article is work on a chapter of the book.
The New Testament as It Was Originally Understood: The King on the
Cross in the Context of the Roman Empire
http://egodeath.com/NTKingOnCrossInRomanEmpire.htm


— Michael


—–Original Message—–
From: egodeath@yahoogroups.com [mailto:egodeath@yahoogroups.com] On
Behalf Of Michael Hoffman
Sent: Sunday, April 30, 2006 10:03 PM
To: ‘Egodeath Group’
Subject: RE: [egodeath] 1-year break from Egodeath research

Revised date:

I’m stopping Philosophy posting and research for 1 year; resuming May
1, 2007. I plan to present my paper
http://www.egodeath.com/EntheogenTheoryOfReligion.htm at a conference.
Group: egodeath Message: 4542 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 28/03/2007
Subject: Psychoactives and political culture
Another writer exposing the underbelly of American Imperialism is
William Blum, recommended by Chomsky.
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&safe=off&q=%22william+blum%
22&btnG=Search

This is emphatically not a political weblog or website — it is
strictly committed to the theory of religious experiential insight as
the central, driving focus — but one cannot have any understanding of
Christianity without fully grasping the social-political-economic
emphasis and purpose of the New Testament canon, as a distinct factor
intertwined with dissociative-state metaphor. Also there are similar
patterns in the phony “War on Drugs” and the phony, dissimulating U.S.
foreign policy. Thus it is essential and profitable, for an
appropriate comprehension of religious experiential insight, to cover
two aspects of two eras: psychoactives and political culture in
antiquity and in the late-modern era:

o Psychoactives in antiquity

o The social-political-economic motivation of the New Testament canon
within the context of the Roman Empire

o The phony War on Drugs in the late-modern era

o The dissimulating trans-national, corporate-military-media strategy
of U.S. foreign policy

I dislike an excessive focus by mystic-state writers on sex or
politics. To retain the focus on the dissociative state and its
insights, these topics must be diligently grounded and tethered to the
topic of the dissociative state, such as how ancient political
metaphors interpenetrated with dissociative-state metaphors. Tying-in
a distinct topic to psychoactive phenomenology risks the attention
running-away to the isolated distinct topic, away from psychoactive
phenomenology, when what’s needed is to use the other topic to support
and strengthen the central topic.

I’ve always loathed much that goes on in popular mass-media politics,
including the phony and limited, propagandistic way topics are
discussed. But I’ve been closeted, until last November’s election.
“Throw the bums out” is an understatement. I particularly dislike
feeble, Establishment-reifying “Liberalism”, just as I feel that the
moderate Jesus scholars are doing more to block comprehension than the
supernaturalist conservative religionists.

For such reasons, on topic after topic, I’ve found that I’m an
outsider to “both” views, always favoring some 3rd alternative, thus
always in some sense a “radical”. I’ve found that relative to the
proffered mainstream options, I’m almost always some kind of
“Radical”. Now with the public somewhat waking up a little bit to how
they’ve been hoodwinked, waking up to the reality that the leaders are
looking out for private interests while pretending to care about
public interests, I’m out of the closet, as long as I can define what
kind of Radical I am on various topics.

I don’t have a political position, other than that governments and
leaders should not dissimulate and pretend that they care most about
the public good when they really only care about their own,
self-serving private interests. It’s all the pretense, the lying, the
misrepresenting of motives that bugs me so much: first with regards to
the phony “War on Drugs”, and now, with regard to U.S. foreign policy
and with American sham moralism such as Ted Haggard and James Dobson.

I loathe supposed “drug policy reform” efforts that employ the
strategy of reifying the dissimulation, the false reality and cultural
spin, of the Prohibitionist leaders, those pretenders and manipulating
moral posturers. I have all but quit supporting “drug policy reform”,
because it continues to paint the same false reality as the
Prohibitionist leaders. I am a Radical: I propose to achieve drug
policy reform through telling the truth about psychoactives throughout
cultural history in all eras, regions, and religions, especially in
New Testament Christianity and in the Roman Empire. Steve Kubby plans
an update to his related book, The Politics of Consciousness.

Against the supposed “drug policy reformers” who still affirm the
prohibitionist dogma that drug use is “a mistake”: Seyyed Nasr and the
other advocates of Tradition for religious consciousness need to
realize that psychoactive drug use is the root of Tradition.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 4543 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 28/03/2007
Subject: Planned book on theory of religious experiential insight
In one of my relatively recent notes files, I have a draft Table of
Contents for my planned book. I may have posted it to the Egodeath
weblog.

The important topic of the original meaning of the canonical New
Testament easily forms a chapter for my book.

The main article (The Entheogen Theory of Religion and Ego Death)
forms one of the leading chapters.

Another chapter presents my conclusions about what a future
Christianity or future religion would logically need to be, given that
the New Testament strategically mixed together social-political
economics (for an alternative, anti-empire) and dissociative-state
metaphor.

If I take an additional 1 year of hiatus from the theory of religious
experiential insight, that would mean beginning work on my book on
March 27, 2008 and perhaps resuming weblog posting then.


The world is waiting for my book. It’s up to me; it will take too
long before anyone else would write it. I’m looking around for what
happens next, but people are looking to me; the ball is in my court.
Many scholars and researchers know I’m working on this theory and
book. People are currently bewildered and directionless, somewhat
awakening from the massive bluff and misleading surface-talk that is
popular media-driven politics. What are writers covering now, after
the Jungian explanatory paradigm? Medical Cannabis is making headway,
but there’s so much more depth to psychoactives throughout cultural
history — not just U.S. 20th Century history.

My planned book, and existing postings and webpages, go beyond what’s
currently available in books, and points and leads the way to answer
the question of what topics we should anticipate appearing in books
next. It is fortunate to see unpredictable books — pleasant
surprises — such as Benny Shanon’s Antipodes of the Mind, disproving
the cynic’s assumption that no one comes out with intelligent superior
combinations of approaches and every writer is stuck in the same
limited rutted mental categories and entrenched paradigmatic
assumption-sets.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 4544 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 29/03/2007
Subject: Re: Psychoactives and political culture
>>advocates of Tradition for religious consciousness need to realize
that psychoactive drug use is the root of Tradition.

In brief,

Drugs *are* Tradition.
Group: egodeath Message: 4545 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 29/03/2007
Subject: New John Allegro website
Jan Irvin has created a new website devoted to the work of John M.
Allegro, with input from Judy Allegro:
http://johnallegro.org

Main sites for Jan Irvin and Andrew Rutajit, authors of the book
Astrotheology & Shamanism:
http://gnosticmedia.com
http://pharmacratic-inquisition.com

Jan received a letter written by John Allegro, dated October 7, 1971,
that someone had found inside a copy of Allegro’s book The Sacred
Mushroom & The Cross. It sheds light on what Allegro was thinking at
the time about “the Plaincourault fresco, with what seems to me a
clear representation of the Amanita muscaria as the Tree of Knowledge
of Eden”. It includes a statement that a clergyman sent Allegro a
letter reporting that he found a mushroom motif in a stained glass
window in his church.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 4546 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 29/03/2007
Subject: Book: Letcher; Shroom: Cultural History of Magic Mushroom
Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom
by Andy Letcher
http://amazon.co.uk/o/asin/0571227708 — June 15, 2006. 360 pages,
Faber and Faber
http://amazon.com/o/asin/0060828285 — February 27, 2007. 384 pages,
HarperCollins
Currently in the display window of a Border’s Books bookstore

My condensed excerpts of reviews below.

http://www.harpercollins.com/books/9780060828288/Shroom/index.aspx
Did mushroom tea kick-start ancient Greek philosophy? More than any
other civilization that has come before us, we are the true magic
mushroom enthusiasts.


Mike Jay, author of the book
Emperors of Dreams: Drugs in the Nineteenth Century
wrote: http://www.erowid.org/library/review/review.php?p=217

There are enough historical records of accidental mushroom
intoxications to make it clear that Liberty Caps have indeed been
popping their pixie-capped heads up across Britain for centuries, but
no evidence whatsoever for an intentional magic mushroom trip before
the 1970s. The hippie sixties came and went without any of its
celebrants spotting the free drugs under their noses. At the time that
I was being sagely informed that the inhabitants of our islands had
been getting high on mushrooms for millennia, the practice was almost
certainly in its very first few seasons.

In Shroom, Andy Letcher establishes that although fungi have
fascinated, inspired and revolted us throughout history, and one
source of this fascination has certainly been their strange
intoxicating properties, there are only two parts of the world –
Mexico and Siberia – where there is clear evidence that these
properties have been deliberately sought out and culturally
sanctioned. All the rest of the story, he proposes, dates from the
early 1950s: we, not our prehistoric ancestors, are the true ‘mushroom
people’. From full moon parties in Thailand to stalls in Camden Lock,
neo-pagan festivals to internet spore-suppliers, there are far more
‘shroomers’ (the word is now in the OED) today than ever before.

Wasson’s enthusiastic but wayward amateur scholarship (egged on by the
Golden Bough-inspired mythomania of his friend Robert Graves)
convinced him that he had discovered the vestigial remains of a
universal religious cult of the mushroom.

The modern mushroom cult persuaded a generation to put a spiritual and
life-changing interpretation on an experience that had typically been
viewed as a toxic delirium. A retrofitted pedigree of ancient mushroom
wisdom clearly served this sales pitch well. The profusion of mushroom
enthusiasts today tells us much less about humanity’s past than it
does about our future.


James Kent, author of the forthcoming book
Psychedelic Information Theory: Shamanism in the Age of Reason
wrote: http://www.tripzine.com/listing.php?id=pit_toc

Andy Letcher dares to confront modern orthodoxy, in a way that
advances our knowledge in the field. For those of you who think you
“know it all” already, this book has the best a fungophile could hope
for: new stuff. Instead of starting at the dawn of time with
proto-hominids chomping down mushrooms and inventing religion — like
most mushroom books — Letcher scrutinizes this myth of the “ancient
mushroom cult” as well as the visionaries who elevated it to academic
status. Existing research contains no hard evidence of ancient
mushroom cultic use.

During most of pre-20th Century Western history, mushrooms were
considered to be either poisonous or edible, with no in-between. The
poisonous ones (including the psychoactive ones) were avoided and
eaten only by mistake. He demonstrates this in literature back to the
13th century, citing botanist’s notes and journal reports of people
accidentally ingesting poisonous mushrooms and believing they were
dying. Notes from the doctors at the time report the odd symptoms;
these are the earliest trip reports we have. Historical accounts of
the first Spaniards to witness Mayan consumption of mushrooms show
that Westerners had no idea what to make of ritual mushroom use, and
considered it pagan and demonic.

Covers the 20th Century cultural movement that considered the
psychoactive mushroom an archaic religious practice. Heavily analyzes
and criticizes R. Gordon Wasson, one of the earlier 20th Century
advocates of the psychoactive mushroom hypothesis of religious
origins. Peels apart Wasson’s theories and criticizes Wasson as:
stubborn and single-minded; blinded by his own theory; an improper
researcher; quick to mold facts to preconceptions; arrogant and
forthright; disallowing dissenting voices. It is a view of Wasson I
have never seen before — including new insights into his relationship
with Maria Sabina. This coverage of Wasson, like much of the book,
contains much valuable new material.

Covers early rave culture in the UK, where free mushroom festivals and
Stonehenge concerts were the British Isles equivalent of Woodstock and
the Grateful Dead shows in the US. The author is a fallen-away
follower of Terence McKenna; now he critically refutes McKenna’s
theories; McKenna’s theories and research skills lack academic rigor
and cannot be taken seriously.

Presents new takes on Siberian shamanism, an analysis of mushroom use
in Mayan culture, and Amanita hypotheses.

This book is full of new material, for people out there who think they
know all there is to know in this field. Provides a new perspective on
the current explanations of the cultural role of psychoactive
mushrooms. A breath of fresh air. A must-have book for mushroom
researchers, it makes everything that has come before look like a
fairy tale.


— end of condensed excerpts —


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 4549 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 29/03/2007
Subject: Re: Book: Letcher; Shroom: Cultural History of Magic Mushroom
Author’s websites:
http://andyletcher.co.uk
http://myspace.com/shroomthebook

Interview with James Kent:
http://homepage.mac.com/andyletcher/My%20Website/page12/page12.html


>>I have a formal paper coming out in the journal Anthropology of
Consciousness this fall which explains my thinking on this (and my
thinking behind Shroom) in detail. Briefly, it seems to me that there
are three ways of answering the question of what happens to
consciousness under the influence of psychedelics. … In the ‘iPod
shuffle’ model, the iPod does not play songs randomly but in
structured clusters; an apt metaphor for under this model psychedelics
rearrange the contents of consciousness, not in the random manner
presupposed by the first model, but in unexpected, novel, patterned
and meaningful ways. So the subject might gain psychological insights,
new ontological perspectives, new understandings, answers to problems
etc etc. Here psychedelic experiences have ontological value even
though they are constrained by culture.

>>The ‘shuffle’ model affords us the ‘safest’ baseline position from
which to begin our investigations. As Thomas de Quincey spotted over
a hundred years ago, if you give drugs to a haywain he will have
visions of oxen; but give drugs to an artist, a poet or a philosopher.
If psychedelics have their essential effect by rearranging the
contents of consciousness in surprising ways, then to get the most out
of psychedelics we need to give them something interesting to work on.
So it behoves us to read philosophy, to hone our skills as musicians
and artists, to educate ourselves, to read great works of literature,
to wrestle with the big questions. To that end, we need a new term for
psychedelics, such as ‘alethotropics’ or ‘alethotropes’: substances,
or tools, that help us move towards understanding or truth; these
substances are culturally bound and can only ever take us part of the
way.


I use terms like “dissociatives” and “the dissociative cognitive
state”, and “cognitive loosening agents”.

One aspect to look for when refuting this book is the “divide,
isolate, and diminish” strategy: see whether the author separates into
isolation each instance of possible historical or literary evidence
for psychoactive use, then state that for each isolated instance,
there’s not compelling evidence to support this instance being
evidence of religious psychoactive use.


I am primarily a Theorist, rather than a Scholar. I harness scholarly
research in support of constructing a viable Theory, framework of
assumptions, or explanatory paradigm. Interpretation is more
important than evidence. Anyone who simply levies the accusation of
circular reasoning shows lack of understanding of how mental models
and theory-construction work — they should know that all theories are
significantly circular. Is there insufficient “hard evidence” in
support of the historical religious use of psychoactives? Much
depends on one’s concept of “hard evidence”, as well as one’s system
of interpretation, explanatory framework, and system of assumptions.
The latter are aspects to look for in Letcher’s book.
Group: egodeath Message: 4555 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 29/03/2007
Subject: Admin: duplicate posts
In the past hours there have been duplicate posts. I am not sending
duplicates; it’s a system bug. Hopefully it will go away; until then,
ignore duplicates.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 4572 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 29/03/2007
Subject: Re: Book: Letcher; Shroom: Cultural History of Magic Mushroom
Mad Thoughts on Mushrooms: Discourse and Power in the Study of
Psychedelic Consciousness
by Andy Letcher
http://www.freeonlineresearchpapers.com/mad-thoughts-mushrooms-discour
se-power-study-psychedelic
Accepted for publication by the journal Anthropology of Consciousness,
Fall 2007

“Uses Foucauldian discourse analysis to pick apart the differing ways
in which we represent the psychedelic experience.” Delivered at the
‘Exploring Consciousness’ Conference in Bath 2004.

The References section lists:

Letcher, Andy.. 2001. The Scouring of the Shire: Fairies, Trolls and
Pixies in Eco-Protest Culture. Folklore 112: 147-161.

Letcher, Andy. 2004. ‘There’s Bulldozers in the Fairy Garden’:
Re-Enchantment Narratives within British Eco-Paganism’. In Hume, Lynne
Hume and McPhillips, Kathleen (eds). Enchanted Worlds: Religion in the
Borderlands. Forthcoming.

Letcher, Andy. (in prep). Mushrooming Religions. Book manuscript in
preparation.
Group: egodeath Message: 4574 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 30/03/2007
Subject: Re: Time is right for political anti-empire reading of New Testament
God and Empire: Jesus Against Rome, Then and Now
by John Dominic Crossan
http://amazon.com/o/asin/0060843233
March 13, 2007
Group: egodeath Message: 4575 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 30/03/2007
Subject: Book: Hofstadter: I Am a Strange Loop
I Am a Strange Loop
by Douglas Hofstadter
http://amazon.com/o/asin/0465030785
March 26, 2007

Condensed blurbs below.

>>The nature of consciousness. Studying biological processes is
inadequate to the task. The phenomenon of self-awareness is best
explained by an abstract model based on symbols and self-referential
loops, which, as they accumulate experiences, create high-level
consciousness. How consciousness mediates our relationships. His model
allows one consciousness to create and maintain within itself true
representations of the essence of another.

>>Explaining the mystery of human consciousness through a fusion of
mathematical logic and cognitive science. Amplifies his conception of
the mind. A repudiation of traditional dualism–in which a spirit or
soul inhabits the body. This conception defines the mind as the
emergence of a neural feedback loop within the brain. This peculiar
loop allows a stream of cognitive symbols to twist back on itself, so
creating the self-awareness and self-integration that constitute an
“I.” Explains the dynamics of this reflective self in lucid language.
Assesses the divide between human and animal minds, and plumbs the
mental links binding the living to the dead.




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 4576 From: egodeath@yahoogroups.com Date: 01/04/2007
Subject: File – EgodeathGroupCharter.txt
The Egodeath Yahoo group is a Weblog sent out by Michael Hoffman,
covering the cybernetic theory of ego death and ego transcendence,
including:

o Nonreductionistic block-universe determinism/Fatedness, the closed
and preexisting future, tenseless time, free will as illusory, the
holographic universe, and predestination and Reformed theology.

o Cognitive science, mental construct processing, mental models,
ontological idealism, contemporary metaphysics of the continuant
self, cybernetic self-control, personal control agency, moral agency,
and self-government.

o Zen satori, short-path enlightenment, and Alan Watts;
transpersonal psychology, Ken Wilber, and integral theory.

o Entheogens and psychedelic drugs, the Eleusinian mysteries and
cracking the allegorical code of the mystery religions, mythic
metaphor and allegorical encoding, the mystic altered state, mystic
and religious experiencing, visionary states, religious rapture, and
Acid Rock mysticism.

o Loss of control, self-control seizure, cognitive instability, and
psychosis and schizophrenia.


— Michael Hoffman
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath
http://www.egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 4577 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 02/04/2007
Subject: Re: Book: Letcher; Shroom: Cultural History of Magic Mushroom
My book review is below.

Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom by Andy Letcher
http://amazon.co.uk/o/asin/0571227708 — June 15, 2006
http://amazon.com/o/asin/0060828285 — February 27, 2007

4 stars out of 5

Partial critical engagement with entheogen theory of religious origins

Shroom covers topics including refutation of the mushroom theory of
the origin of religion, the recent U.K. psilocybin mushroom scene, a
critical treatment of Wasson’s research methodology and mushroom
theory of Vedic religion, and Tim Leary as backdrop leading up to the
later popular use of psilocybin mushrooms. This is a valuable book
that contributes some new perspectives and new coverage of entheogens
in Western culture; this book is a must-have for entheogen
researchers. The present review focuses exclusively on his critique
of the mushroom theory of religious origins, which he sometimes treats
as though it is a critical refutation of the overall entheogen theory
of religion.

Letcher has not disproved the entheogen theory of religion, or even
fully engaged with that hypothesis. At most, he has made a partial
effort to call into question the mushroom theory of the pre-historical
origin of religion, in the form of a secret cult spreading from a
single origin over time and across regions. Letcher often comes
across triumphally as having disproved the entheogen theory of the
origin of religion, but a careful reading of his treatment of that
particular topic shows that he has actually only shown something far
narrower ; he has only refuted a highly specific point.

At most, Letcher’s treatment of the entheogen theory of religious
origins shows that we have no compelling archaeological evidence for a
prehistorical mushroom cult that was secret and unbroken. When his
rhetorical verbiage and his general discussions of history are put
aside, the substance of his argumentation that remains does not amount
to a compelling argument against the frequent use of mushrooms (or
other visionary plants) throughout religious history.

Letcher’s writing style is rhetorical, so that he tells the story of
recent mushroom scholarship and culture well, presenting much of
interest to the audience, including valuable new material. He uses a
biased rhetorical style; for example, “lunatic fringe”, “conspiracy
theories”, “unfounded speculations”, “the myth” of the entheogen
origin of religion. This charged rhetorical style obscures that fact
that his argument for his refutation of the entheogen theory of the
origin of religion rests on only a few, fleetingly discussed points of
argument.

Letcher does not engage the bulk of the literary and artistic evidence
that provide sufficient grounds to support the general entheogen
theory of religious origins. He merely puts forth brief and rather
arbitrary arguments dismissing a couple of the many depictions of
mushrooms in Christian art.

Letcher’s inadequate selection of cases to refute, and his brief,
perfunctory treatment of these cases, is not sufficient in breadth or
depth to compell adherents of various variants of the entheogen theory
of the origins of religion to change their position, no matter how
many times or how confidently he rhetorically dubs the theory as a
“myth”. For example, he would need to engage the range of art that is
presented in the first three issues of Entheos magazine, and the range
of arguments such as those presented in Giorgio Samorini’s articles
about Christian mushroom trees.

It’s admirable to see an independent critical thinker comment on
selected aspects of Allegro and Wasson, but only a few of those
comments actually amount to engaging with the evidence for the general
entheogen theory of the origin of religion. Letcher makes the risky
move of overextending his specific focus on psychoactive mushrooms, at
the expense of being under-informed on the general entheogen theory
and the full range of arguments, interpretive frameworks, systems of
assumptions, and evidence of various types in support of that
broad-ranging theory.

As a thought-experiment with the hypothesis that normalized religious
cultic use of mushrooms is only a few decades old, this aspect of the
book is a valuable contribution to the field; however, Letcher
switches inconsistently between that bold but narrow hypothesis and a
broader, firm conclusion that the entheogen theory of religion
altogether is merely a recent fabrication of popular scholarship and
merely wishful thinking.

Letcher leaps from what he narrowly demonstrates, to a stance and a
claim to have shown convincingly that the entheogen theory of
religious origins (and fairly frequent entheogen use throughout
religious history) is nothing but recent wishful thinking, a
fabrication by a group that is a historical novelty: late 20th Century
psychedelics enthusiasts, including mushroom enthusiasts in the U.K.
from 1976-2006.

All theories involve a framework of assumptions. The fact that a
scholarly theory uses a set of unproved assumptions does not instantly
do away with (or “demolish”) the theory. Letcher handles the evidence
by the common strategy of dividing, isolating, and diminishing each
piece of evidence in isolation, operating under the arbitrary silent
assumption that entheogen use was rare, secretive (“conspiracy”), and
deviant. But such a methodology is problematic and is controverted
by the maximal entheogen theory of religion, which holds that Western
history and Western culture have always been inspired to some extent
by the ongoing practice of using visionary plants. The unavoidable
question remains, “How are we to judge what is plausible and what was
normal for that culture?”

Should we assume that the use of visionary plants was normal and
significantly present throughout mainstream religion and culture, or
that it was rare, a secretive conspiracy, and deviant (exceptional)?
Selecting our assumptions about the backdrop, of what was normal in a
culture, affects the validity of completely isolating each piece of
potential evidence and then attempting to judge the plausibility of
reading that piece of evidence as supporting the entheogen theory of
religion. What seems plausible to a critical scholar depends on the
backdrop of what we assume was normal in the culture.

For example, Letcher affirms that the cathedral door at Hildesheim,
Germany depicts the tree of knowledge in the shape that “looks
extremely like a giant Liberty Cap”, but he argues that it cannot have
meant a Liberty Cap, because the doors were carefully designed and the
depiction cannot have been secret in that case, so the image cannot
represent anything other than, or in addition to, a “stylized fig
tree”.

It doesn’t occur to Letcher to imagine and address the obvious
critical arguments and questions against his hasty discussion, such
as: why assume that a mushroom allusion had to be secret? why is an
officially designed depiction of a mushroom automatically ruled out as
unthinkable? why was the fig tree stylized in the specific form of a
Liberty Cap mushroom? what about the hundreds of other specifically
psilocybin mushroom-shaped trees in Christian art?

Letcher has much homework to do if he wants to try to retain his
hypothesis that psychoactive mushrooms were absent from Western
religious history until the late 20th Century, and if he intends to
convince critical entheogen scholars of that hypothesis — a
hypothesis that will be hard to maintain after seriously addressing,
with responses to at least the most obvious counter-criticisms, the
current full range of artistic evidence (post-Wasson and
post-Allegro), which Letcher has barely engaged.
Group: egodeath Message: 4578 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 02/04/2007
Subject: Re: Book: Letcher; Shroom: Cultural History of Magic Mushroom
Letcher’s book poses as having shown that the entheogen or mushroom
theory of religious origins is nothing but an unjustifiable recent
modern fabrication, a popular urban myth. But the book actually
discusses only a few pieces of evidence, and very briefly, as the
foundation for such a view. The large amount of valuable new
commentary he presents on various aspects of modern mushroom history
and scholarship obscures his paucity of basic evidence and arguments
against the entheogen theory of religion.
Group: egodeath Message: 4579 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 04/04/2007
Subject: Re: Book: Letcher; Shroom: Cultural History of Magic Mushroom
Private unlinked webpage with my book pages commentary:
http://www.egodeath.com/ShroomLetcher.htm
Group: egodeath Message: 4580 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 07/04/2007
Subject: The maximal entheogen theory of religion
From my article http://www.egodeath.com/WassonEdenTree.htm


The Entheogen Theory of Christianity and the Bible

The entheogen theory of religion asserts that the main source of
religion by far is visionary plants, including Psilocybin mushrooms,
Peyote, Ayahuasca combinations, Cannabis, Opium, Henbane, Datura,
Mandrake, Belladonna, ergot, Amanita mushrooms, and combinations of
these. Religious myths are, above all, metaphorical descriptions of
the cognitive phenomenology accessed with a high degree of efficacy
through these plants.

Religious myths are descriptions of visionary plants and the
experiences they produce. Visionary plants are incomparably more
efficacious and ergonomic than meditation; they are historically the
source and model for meditation, and meditation was developed as an
activity to do in the midst of an entheogen-induced mystic cognitive
state. There is abundant and plentiful evidence, in various forms,
for the entheogen theory of each of the major religions, including
Jewish religion and Christianity.

The entheogen theory of religion finds visionary plants in the Bible
and related writings such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, Nag Hammadi
library, and Gnostic writings, together with metaphorical descriptions
of the experiences and insights induced by the plants. The fruit of
the trees of knowledge and life in Eden meant Amanita muscaria and its
host trees such as birch and pine. Ezekiel’s visions were induced by
ingesting entheogens. John’s visions in Revelation were induced by
ingesting entheogens. ‘Strong wine’ in the Old Testament means wine
with visionary plants such as henbane.

‘Drunk’ means inebriated with visionary plants, not merely alcohol,
throughout the Bible. ‘Mixed wine’ means visionary plants, including
its use in the Last Supper and Eucharistic meals, banquets, and
feasts. In one metaphor, for example, the king drinks wine and sees
the foreboding writing on the wall which indicates he will lose his
kingdom. This is a metaphor for the initiate’s visionary-plant
inebriation and its revealing of the illusory aspect of the personal
autonomous power of control.

The ‘Holy Spirit’ means the dissociative cognitive state, including
the experience of divine wrath and then divine compassion toward the
initiate as pseudo-autonomous agent. Anywhere any form of ingesting
plants is found in the Bible – anointing, eating, drinking, or incense
– likely indicates visionary plants.

There are common, shallow misunderstandings and misreadings to avoid.
The effects of visionary plants are very unlike that of alcohol,
except that alcoholic inebriation is a common metaphor representing
visionary plant inebriation. Ironic reverse metaphors are common such
as, visionary plant inebriation makes you sober, no longer drunken.

The moderate entheogen theory of religion holds that entheogens have
occasionally been used in religion, to simulate the traditional
methods of accessing mystic states. The maximal entheogen theory of
religion holds that entheogen use is the primary traditional method of
accessing the mystic altered state, and that pre-modern cultures
differ from modern cultures precisely in that they are
altered-state-based cultures; the modern era is deviant in its lack of
integrating the mystic altered state into its cultural foundation.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 4581 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 07/04/2007
Subject: Letcher’s 2 theories & the 3rd, maximal entheogen theory
Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom
by Andy Letcher
http://amazon.co.uk/o/asin/0571227708 — June 15, 2006
http://amazon.com/o/asin/0060828285 — February 27, 2007


Letcher heavily uses the concept of “The Mushroom Origin of Religion
Theory” (MORT).

There are actually 3 theories at hand, in play: only two are
considered by Letcher, and the 3rd option is the maximal theory:


Letcher’s view:

o Entheogenic mushroom use was rare & isolated

o Entheogenic mushroom use was not in the form of a single secret
official cult


The MORT according to Letcher:

o Entheogenic mushroom use was common

o Entheogenic mushroom use was in the form of a single secret
official cult


The maximal entheogen theory:

o Entheogenic mushroom use was common

o Entheogenic mushroom use was not in the form of a single secret
official cult


Letcher’s thinking is brittle: it doesn’t occur to him to combine the
idea of “enth mush use was common” with the idea of “no single
official secret cult”.

Discussing the idea of {single secret official cult} is not important
to the maximal theory; it’s only discussed here because Letcher in
particular is focused/fixated on that idea which he conflates with the
mush/enth theory of religion. The primary difference between
Letcher’s two options (his false choice) and the max theory concerns
Letcher’s idea of {single secret official cult}.


When Letcher looks for a smoking gun, what theory does he have in mind
as the one he expects to be proven by the smoking gun? He is looking
for a smoking gun evidence specifically for a whole detailed “the
MORT” — which evidence cannot be found except in a distorted, garbled
form. He ought to be looking for smoking gun evidence for a different
theory than the one he keeps bringing to mind.

He ought to be looking for smoking gun evidence for the maximal
entheogen theory of religion, which includes mushrooms in a certain
role that is *not* his concept from McKenna/Wasson/Allegro of an
“original secret mushroom cult”. Specifically, with regards to
mushrooms, he ought to be looking for smoking gun evidence that
mushrooms were one of the many visionary plants that were used by
various individuals and partly independent groups, with individual
dsiscovery and individual usage interacting with ongoing effective
traditions (in-effect traditions).

This does not mean a single line of conspiracy membership in a
distinct cult persisting over millennia (which is the only scenario
Letcher has thought to consider, and which he wrongly takes for
granted as the only possible “MORT”). This means ongoing rediscovery
by culturally partially interconnected individuals.

We have to get into the topic of how the individual and small group
relate to collectivity, how these scales interpenetrate. Part of the
brittleness and limitation of Letcher’s conception of “the MORT” is
his assumed, taken-for-granted conception of how individuals and
collectives interact over time. He is inconsistent — he flips from
urging an appreciation of cultural complexity, to erecting yet again
his own strawman model of “a single secret mushroom cult”.

The options to him are binary: either there was cultural complexity
bereft of any significant mush/enth use (no tradition or
virtual-tradition), or there was tradition in the specific form of an
official, single, secret mushroom cult, a kind of official underground
network. For all his lip-service to appreciating cultural complexity,
he shows no interest in looking for complex combinations in-between
the two points, or complex combinations of the sub-components of the
two views he considers.

Letcher affirms, in spots in his book, that individuals have surely
used mushrooms in at least some isolated cases. Letcher is willing to
affirm that mushrooms are likely to have been used in an entheogenic
fashion at least isolated individual cases — but he adheres to that
minimal entheogen theory, at most. The only other alternative that is
conceivable or imaginable for him is the one scenario he latches onto
due to excessive, imbalanced attention to McKenna/Wasson/Allegro —
the idea of a single secret official mushroom cult.


[insert quotes from book asserting that mushrooms or other visionary
plants *have* been used prior to the modern era]

[insert quotes from book asserting that the existence of a single
secret, official mushroom cult is false and a late-modern fabrication]


He disputes the assertion that entheogenic mushroom use was common
prior to the modern era. For Letcher, the idea that {entheogenic
mushroom use was common prior to the modern era} is identically the
same as the idea that {there was a single, secret, official mushroom
cult}. But these are not the identically same idea. When he looks
for a smoking gun evidence, what he has in mind is smoking-gun
evidence for the assertion that {there was a single, secret, official
mushroom cult}. That’s quite different than what we *should* be
showing smoking-gun evidence for.

We *should* be showing smoking-gun evidence for the assertion that
{entheogenic mushroom use was common prior to the modern era}. The
real dispute needs to be recognized as a dispute over the exact *form*
of the commonness of entheogenic mushroom use that took place prior to
the modern era. He asserts that entheogenic mushroom use was not
common prior to the late-modern era, and he asserts that if
entheogenic mushroom use were common prior to the late-modern era, the
form of that common entheogenic mushroom use would be structured as a
single secret official cult — and that is the pivotal point of
disagreement between the two alternatives Letcher considers, on the
one hand, versus the maximal entheogen theory of religion as I
formulate it, on the other hand.


Letcher’s limited thinking, his limited number of combinations of
scenarios he considers, is probably a symptom of today’s faulty,
limited conception of the entheogen theory, on the part of most
entheogen scholars, who perpetuate the assumptions underlying the
moderate or minimal entheogen theory of religion.


From my article http://www.egodeath.com/WassonEdenTree.htm

>>The entheogen theory of religion asserts that the main source of
religion by far is visionary plants, including Psilocybin mushrooms
… Amanita mushrooms, and combinations of these. Religious myths
are, above all, metaphorical descriptions of the cognitive
phenomenology accessed with a high degree of efficacy through these
plants.

>>Religious myths are descriptions of visionary plants and the
experiences they produce. Visionary plants are incomparably more
efficacious and ergonomic than meditation; they are historically the
source and model for meditation, and meditation was developed as an
activity to do in the midst of an entheogen-induced mystic cognitive
state. There is abundant and plentiful evidence, in various forms,
for the entheogen theory of each of the major religions, including
Jewish religion and Christianity.

>>The entheogen theory of religion finds visionary plants in the Bible
and related writings such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, Nag Hammadi
library, and Gnostic writings, together with metaphorical descriptions
of the experiences and insights induced by the plants. …

>>The moderate entheogen theory of religion holds that entheogens have
occasionally been used in religion, to simulate the traditional
methods of accessing mystic states. The maximal entheogen theory of
religion holds that entheogen use is the primary traditional method of
accessing the mystic altered state, and that pre-modern cultures
differ from modern cultures precisely in that they are
altered-state-based cultures; the modern era is deviant in its lack of
integrating the mystic altered state into its cultural foundation.


Letcher holds the following (this is basically the minimal entheogen
theory of religion, or a major variant of that theory):

o Entheogenic musrhoom use was not common; it was rare, deviant,
isolated

o Entheogenic musrhoom use would have been in the form of a single
secret official cult


The maximal entheogen theory (in a good formulation/variant) holds
that:

o Entheogenic musrhoom use was fairly common

o Entheogenic mushroom use was in various forms, with individuals
picking up evidence from art and local loose cultural practices.
(*Not* a single secret official cult, we must emphasize against
Letcher’s ever-assumption!)


Letcher looks for opponents to present smoking-gun evidence used to
defend the bogus strawman scenario that he keeps erecting in order to
knock down: he conflates the following to form a bunk combination and
then demands that we argue in favor of it, his bastardized
idea-combination he got from McKenna/Wasson/Allegro:

Letcher’s strawman combination of ideas he’s fixated on resisting;
“the MORT”:

o Entheogenic musrhoom use was fairly common

o Entheogenic musrhoom use would have been in the form of a single
secret official cult

The Maximal theory says enthegenic mushroom use was common but *not*
in the form of a single cult. Such a combination is unthinkable to
Letcher, despite his self-righteous lip-service lectures about needing
to appreciate cultural complexity. To him, the bad guys are the
McKennas/Wassons who assert (as Letcher perceives them) that mushroom
use was common *and specifically, was common in the form of a single
secret official cult*.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 4582 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 07/04/2007
Subject: Re: The maximal entheogen theory of religion
From my article http://www.egodeath.com/EntheogenTheoryOfReligion.htm



The Entheogen Theory of Religion

The entheogen theory of religion holds that the main origin and
ongoing wellspring of religion is visionary plants, such as Psilocybe
mushrooms, Peyote, Ayahuasca combinations, Salvia divinorum, Cannabis,
Opium, Henbane, Datura, Mandrake, Belladonna, ergot, and Amanita
mushrooms.

Visionary plants have been commonly used around the world throughout
the history of religion and culture (Hofmann, Schultes, & Ratsch
1992), including in the various forms of Western Esotericism (Heinrich
1994). Greek and Christian mythic-religious systems often refer to
visionary plants (Ruck, Staples, & Heinrich 2001). Leading mystics
throughout the history of various religions have used on-demand,
visionary-plant sessions with rationality-oriented mystic-state
experiencing (Merkur 2001).

Meditation, shamanic drumming, and liturgical ritual were developed as
activities to do in the plant-induced dissociative state, not as
methods of inducing the dissociative state in the first place.


Origins of Christianity in Entheogenic Initiation

The extent of entheogen use throughout Christian history has barely
been considered yet (Hoffman 2006). Early Christianity involved
mystical, religious, visionary experiencing, including the experience
of the transformative, transcendent power of the Holy Spirit at
Eucharistic agape meals (Johnson 1998). Early Christian writings show
familiarity with ecstatic mania, inspiration, elevated sobriety, and
“drunkenness” (Nasrallah 2003).

The Jesus figure is portrayed in the New Testament as a
spirit-possessed altered-state shamanistic healer (Davies 1995). The
figure of Paul the Apostle is portrayed as a shamanistic mystic
(Ashton 2000), and the apostles are portrayed as adepts in shamanic
altered-state mystic experiencing (Pilch 2004).

Solving the riddle of the original mystic-metaphorical meaning of
Christianity requires also understanding the surrounding metaphorical
altered-state initiation systems throughout Christian history,
including Roman religion, Neoplatonism, Western Esotericism, and
astral ascent mysticism.

The large window of the Legend of St. Eustace in Chartres cathedral
shows many ‘mushroom trees’ and unambiguous depictions of mushrooms;
hundreds of depictions of mushrooms appear in Christian art.


Bibliography [for above excerpts]:

Ashton, J. The Religion of Paul the Apostle. New Haven: Yale, 2000.

Davies, S. Jesus the Healer: Possession, Trance, and the Origins of
Christianity. New York: Continuum, 1995.

Heinrich, C. Strange Fruit: Alchemy and Religion: The Hidden Truth.
London: Bloomsbury, 1994.

Hoffman, M. S. “Wasson and Allegro on the Tree of Knowledge as
Amanita”. Journal of Higher Criticism, forthcoming, 2006.

Hofmann, A.; R. E. Schultes; and C. Ratsch. Plants of the Gods: Their
Sacred, Healing and Hallucinogenic Powers. Rochester: Healing Arts,
1992 (1979).

Johnson, L. T. Religious Experience in Earliest Christianity: A
Missing Dimension in New Testament Studies. Minneapolis: Augsburg,
1998.

Merkur, D. The Psychedelic Sacrament: Manna, Meditation, and Mystical
Experience. Rochester: Park Street, 2001.

Nasrallah, L. An Ecstasy of Folly: Prophecy and Authority in Early
Christianity. Cambridge: Harvard, 2003.

Pilch, J. J. Visions and Healing in the Acts of the Apostles: How the
Early Believers Experienced God. Collegeville: Liturgical, 2004.

Ruck, C.; B. Staples; and C. Heinrich. The Apples of Apollo: Pagan and
Christian Mysteries of the Eucharist. Durham: Carolina Academic, 2001.
Group: egodeath Message: 4583 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 07/04/2007
Subject: No smoking-gun evidence w/o smoking-gun interpretation-framework
People commonly talk of “smoking-gun evidence”, but we need as well
the concept of “smoking-gun interpretation”, which is related to the
also-important idea of *motivation* — not only is “evidence”
important, but the destination of that evidence: evidence toward what?
evidence in support of what story? evidence toward what objective?
evidence of what?

There is near smoking-gun evidence, and near-smoking-gun
interpretation, which, if combined, constitute a viable, justified
theory, a sound and reasonable conclusion: the maximal entheogen
theory of religion. Or call it simply “the entheogen theory of
religion” — noting that this does not mean the moderate, minimal
version of said theory, which has been heretofore dominant.

The version or variant of the entheogen theory of religion which is
predominant today is the minimal, moderate version. I aim to change
the “normal”, predominant version from the minimal entheogen theory of
religion to the maximal entheogen theory of religion.

“Maximal” does not mean some absolute extreme; it means, for example,
that entheogens were the original inspiration for creating techniques
such as meditation and drumming, not that meditation and drumming were
the original means for attaining the altered state, and then visionary
plants were used (as a “degenerate” “crutch”) as an “alternative”
“simulation” of those approaches.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 4584 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 12/04/2007
Subject: Webpage: Various Views on Entheogens in Religious History
I created this webpage today.

Letcher and Various Views on Entheogens in Religious History
http://www.egodeath.com/ViewsOnEntheogensInReligiousHistory.htm
Paradigmatic blindness in Letcher’s recent book Shroom: A Cultural
History of the Magic Mushroom, and generalizing this to define and
compare the main contending views.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 4585 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 15/04/2007
Subject: Re: All ‘wine’ was ‘mixed wine’ — psychoactive/dissociative, inten
The index entries for coverage of ‘mixed wine’ in Road to Eleusis
would be:

esp. pp. 51-52, 99-104, also pp. 47, 91, 93, 98, 106
Group: egodeath Message: 4586 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 17/04/2007
Subject: Re: Dead Sea Scrolls: Swallow the Teacher of Righteousness
>>>This means the priest whose dishonor was greater than his honor.
For he walked in the ways of drunkedness in order to quench his
thirst. But the cup of God’s wrath will swallow him up

The word translated as “swallowed” in the above passage connotes the
following in early Hebrew writings: absorb, consume, destroy enemies,
disappear, ruin, suddenly engulf, and swallow.

This passage alludes to a person ingesting psychoactive plants, and
then being destroyed or “swallowed up” by the visionary plants. When
one suddenly engulfs and absorbs, consumes and destroys, disappears
and ruins the psychoactive plants in the process of ingesting them,
the visionary plants turn right around and act as the opponent of the
person who ate them: the visionary plant suddenly engulfs and absorbs,
consumes and destroys, disappears and ruins the egoic self-concept and
sense-of-self of the person who ingested the visionary plant. A
parallel is a frat boy who boastfully ingests a strong dose of acid
and then is reduced to fearfulness due to the resulting feeling of
powerlessness.

Such playfulness with language, reference, and imagery is typical and
exemplary of antiquity’s attitude toward entheogen-induced mystic
altered-state experiential insights.
Group: egodeath Message: 4587 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 17/04/2007
Subject: Re: Divine abduction; violence in mythic allegory
Coverage of ‘sacred marriage’ and ‘marriage abduction’ in the book The
Road to Eleusis:

Main coverage:
53-54, 56 (30-40% of the page)
104-107 (80%)
108 (40%)
109 (20%)
111 (95%)
124 (40%)
134 (30%)

Slight coverage: 45-50, 57, 110, 112-114, 117, 121, 123, 128-130, 133,
135-136


From http://www.egodeath.com/EntheogenTheoryOfReligion.htm
>>The ‘sacred marriage’ is a metaphor for being overpowered. The
>>’sacred marriage’ represents the mind acknowledging that its
practical controller-actions work in conjunction with a separate
hidden part of oneself that’s the mysterious ultimate origin and
source of thoughts, upon which the controller part of oneself is
profoundly dependent upon and subject to. One’s inner control-center
is experienced as passively subject to and penetrated by the hidden
ultimate producer of all one’s thoughts, attracting and overpowering
the illusory pseudo-autonomous self, marrying that self, and thereby
giving birth to the new self-concept which takes into account now both
levels of control-power.
Group: egodeath Message: 4588 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 18/04/2007
Subject: Grounding Esotericism in cognitive experiential phenomena
It’s ok to map “this” to “that” to “the other”, in Western Esotericism
explanations, such as mapping Sex aspects to Astrology aspects, but
WTF does either one have to do with the various experiential dynamics
that are encountered vividly in the mystic altered state? That’s the
problem that plagues Manly Hall, David Fideler, and Gnosis magazine.
You can write an entire library of automotive repair manuals filled
with esoteric lore, but WFT does that have to do with the things
people encounter in the mystic altered state? Benny Shanon does well
because he puts the first emphasis on the things encountered in the
mystic altered state — but he doesn’t link them up to the items
discussed in Western Esotericism.

This link-up is where scholarly theorizing has the most trouble,
because scholars’ thinking is too little grounded in spiritual
experiencing. Thick auto repair manuals filled with worthless
Esotericism details become a substitute for shining the spotlight
where it firstly belongs: on the experiential insights encountered in
the intense mystic altered state. There’s some potential in “as
above, so below”, if the items of astrotheology are mapped to the
mental dynamics, and experiential insights about the self and about
the mental worldmodel, that can be experienced in the mystic altered
state.

Even discussions of visionary plants usually serve as a way of
avoiding discussion of the experiential insights encountered in the
intense mystic altered state. Plant-free contemplation will never
compete effectively against the superior ergonomics of plants or
plant-utilizing contemplation. Visionary plants are a necessary door,
but are only the door; the experiencing that happens to be produced
from ingesting the plants is the most important aspect of Western
Esotericism.

The typical move is to declare that spiritual experiencing is like
aspects of sex, and that spiritual experiencing is like astrology, and
then to discuss in detail how sex aspects map to astrology aspects —
while omitting the most important and relevant mapping, which is to
map sex and astrology to the aspects of mystic-state experiential
phenomena.

Thus we must picture dissociative-state experiencing as the center of
Western Esotericism, with external topics positioned outside and
around it — including, for example, sex, astrology, and certainly
visionary plants. The common mistake of entheogen scholars who are
esotericists is to place plants in the center, other topics
surrounding them, and then omit any focus on cognitive phenomenology
— typically justified by saying that language can’t describe the
arena of subjective cognitive experiencing in the intense mystic
state.

The worst approach to Western Esotericism is to, in practice, put many
external fields/topics splattered all over the place, with no center,
no point, no emphasis, no direction except vague “wisdom”.

The middling approach to Western Esotericism is to, in practice,
position visionary plants at the center of one’s presentation of
Western Esotericism, with other, external topics such as sex and
astrology positioned around that, as though the revelation is the
sheer physical presence of visionary plants.

The best and only true approach to Western Esotericism is to
effectively position dissociative-state experiential phenomena and
insights about the self and mental worldmodel at the center, closely
assisted by visionary plants, with other, external topics arrayed
around that central topic, serving to clarify and substantiate and
exercise the cognitive-phenomenological emphasis. As an example, as a
theorist and scholar, I centrally emphasize the self as largely
illusory with regards to its sense of being an agent that wields
control-power while moving through time and space, into an open
future; and that is something that is intensely experienced in the
dissociative mystic state.

If an author doesn’t connect “as above, so below” to such an arena of
mystic-state experiencing — things that can be intense inner
experiences — then “as above, so below” is reduced to merely “as
exterior, so exterior” rather than the real meaning, which is “as
exterior, so interior”. Most Western Esotericism discussions lack any
real discussion of the interior, of cognitive phenomenology. Bunk
esotericism is external-only esotericism. Bunk Gnosticism is that
which doesn’t even talk about intense experiential phenomena, or gives
it verbal lip-service but fails to provide or strengthen the actual
intense experiencing.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 4589 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 26/04/2007
Subject: Re: Ulansey in movie Entheogen: Awakening the God Within
The documentary movie has a new title:

Entheogen: Awakening the Divine Within

Home page:
http://entheogen.tv
Group: egodeath Message: 4590 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 26/04/2007
Subject: Movie: Entheogen: Awakening the Divine Within
New movie:

Entheogen: Awakening the Divine Within

Home page:
http://entheogen.tv

Web search:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=movie+%22Entheogen%3A+Awakening+t
he+Divine+Within%22&btnG=Google+Search




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 4591 From: egodeath@yahoogroups.com Date: 01/05/2007
Subject: File – EgodeathGroupCharter.txt
The Egodeath Yahoo group is a Weblog sent out by Michael Hoffman,
covering the cybernetic theory of ego death and ego transcendence,
including:

o Block-universe determinism/Fatedness, the closed
and preexisting future, tenseless time, free will as illusory, the
holographic universe, and predestination and Reformed theology.

o Cognitive science, mental construct processing, mental models,
ontological idealism, contemporary metaphysics of the continuant
self, cybernetic self-control, personal control agency, moral agency,
and self-government.

o Zen satori, short-path enlightenment, and Alan Watts;
transpersonal psychology, Ken Wilber, and integral theory.

o Entheogens and psychedelic drugs, mystery religions, mythic
metaphor and allegorical encoding, the mystic altered state, mystic
and religious experiencing, visionary states, religious rapture, and
Acid Rock mysticism.

o Loss of control, self-control seizure, cognitive instability, and
psychosis and schizophrenia.


— Michael Hoffman
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath
http://www.egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 4593 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 10/06/2007
Subject: Seminar: R. Joseph Hoffmann: The Jesus Project
Introducing The Jesus Project

R. Joseph Hoffmann, Ph.D.

Chair, Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion

http://jesus-project.com <http://jesus-project.com/> – excerpts:



>>In January 2007, at the University of California, Davis, the Committee for
the Scientific Examination of Religion (CSER) asked the question that had
been looking for a serious answer for over a hundred years: Did Jesus exist?
The CSER fellows, invited guests, present and former members of the Jesus
Seminar, and a wide variety of interested and engaged attendees applauded
roundly after three days of lectures and discussions on the subject
“Scripture and Skepticism.” The Jesus Project is the first methodologically
agnostic approach to the question of Jesus’ historical existence. We believe
in assessing the quality of the evidence available for looking at this
question before seeing what the evidence has to tell us. We do not believe
the task is to produce a “plausible” portrait of Jesus prior to considering
the motives and goals of the Gospel writers in telling his story. We think
the history and culture of the times provide many significant clues about
the character of figures similar to Jesus. We believe the mixing of
theological motives and historical inquiry is impermissible. We regard
previous attempts to rule the question out of court as vestiges of a time
when the Church controlled the boundaries of permissible inquiry into its
sacred books. More directly, we regard the question of the historical Jesus
as a testable hypothesis, and we are committed to no prior conclusions about
the outcome of our inquiry.



>>The Jesus Project will run for five years, with its first session
scheduled for December 2007. It will meet twice a year, and, like its
predecessor, the Jesus Seminar, it will hold open meetings. The Project will
be limited to fifty scholars with credentials in biblical studies as well as
in the crucial cognate disciplines of ancient history, mythography,
archaeology, classical studies, anthropology, and social history.



>>At the end of its lease, the Jesus Project will publish its findings.
Those findings will not be construed as sensational or alarming; like all
good history, the project is aiming at a probable reconstruction of the
events that explain the beginning of Christianity-a man named Jesus from the
province of Galilee whose life served as the basis for the beginning of a
movement, or a sequence of events that led to the Jesus story being
propagated throughout the Mediterranean. We find both conclusions worthy of
contemplation, but as we live in the real world-of real causes and
outcomes-only one can be true.





Brian Flemming’s comments

http://www.slumdance.com/blogs/brian_flemming/archives/002485.html





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 4594 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 11/06/2007
Subject: Pls mirror, backup, and download Egodeath.com webpages
Please download some Egodeath.com webpages and be prepared to reassemble
portions of the website and Egodeath theory if necessary. In case my
Egodeath.com website becomes unavailable, various mirroring and backup is
required. My pages should be mirrored at other sites, such as long-lived
free website hosting sites or topic-specific sites run by groups or
individuals. I will consider creating .zip files of the webpages, similar
to the Yahoogroups archive file I created. It would be helpful to have a
list of which webpages are most valuable, a prioritization. There are some
Internet archives, but additional approaches are helpful.



I have sometimes gathered and uploaded copied of webpages, as a partial
mirror for sites that no longer exist – sometimes not even in the Internet
archives – and I’ve been very glad I did so. As owner and maintainer of
multiple information-publishing websites, I’ve seen how fleeting and
transient many valuable webpages and websites are; this has led me to a
policy of extensive excerpting of other sites – with attribution – into
mine. If I truly value information at another site, I have learned the hard
way that it is necessary to mirror that information at my site, because
merely posting a link to the other site often results in a dead end and the
loss of that information. It is a loss when multiple people try to recover
a vanished website and it can’t be done, or requires excessive research and
recovery.



Any particular digital information may or may not be accessible in the
future. For example, information that was backed up only onto a 5 1/4″
floppy in 1990 is practically gone now, because 5 1/4″ drives to read those
disks are obsolete and increasingly unavailable. Similarly, 3 1/2″ floppies
and drives are on the verge of becoming obsolete, showing that any
particular digital information could become inaccessible in the near future
if not maintained properly.



I will consider setting up mirror sites. Please download some Egodeath.com
webpages and be prepared to reassemble portions of the website and Egodeath
theory if necessary.



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 4595 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 11/06/2007
Subject: Re: Pls mirror, backup, and download Egodeath.com webpages
Also consider retaining a copy of the Yahoogroups postings, if you subscribe
to this Yahoogroup in the form of receiving emails. Don’t assume that the
postings will remain available at the Yahoogroups site; they might not.
Yahoo Groups doesn’t have a feature to download all the posts from a group.


My Yahoogroup archive info (instructions) was mis-filed into my What’s New
page:
http://www.egodeath.com/whatsnew.htm
That archive file currently covers through Dec. 3, 2005, but doesn’t include
Dec. 4, 2005 to June 11, 2007. I posted steadily every month from June 2001
through Jan. 2006, then pulled back; the archive is missing 4 scattered
months of heavy posting.

Partly relevant: there are also my publically archived Usenet newsgroup
postings back to March 16, 1995, including:
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=cybernetic+theory+ego+transcendence&num=30
&hl=en&safe=off&meta=site%3Dgroups


I should create a webpage dedicated to various backup/archive aspects.
Group: egodeath Message: 4596 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 12/06/2007
Subject: Origin of Theory in frustrating effort for personal thought-directi
This posting covers:



The power to direct one’s thoughts; the recursive frustration that was the
origin of this Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence
(quasi-autobiographical)



“Direct My Thoughts” — The Power of Directing of Attention as the Key to
Both the Mundane and Mystic Realms





This description of my mental dynamics, and how the Cybernetic Theory of Ego
Transcendence came about, and what the traumatic struggle was about, covers
the spirit of my early notebooks (1986) as well as my final
theory-specification article. In a way, it is the most deeply
autobiographical thing I could write; you have no idea what it felt like to
be me in my most trying and formative period, until you read this
description of my frustrations, struggles, hopes, and ultimate success in
studying mental control and thought-direction power as applied to the daily
mundane state of consciousness, informed by the common reports of
control-struggles in the altered state.



My struggles and frustrations were fairly distinctive and odd this way,
since I was deliberately struggling to formulate a breakthrough theory and
model of personal mental self-control that incorporated Alan Watts’
explanation of Zen satori in terms of self-control cybernetics, as well as
Hofstadter’s leaping out from strange loops around the self-symbol, and
Wilber’s language of level-transcendence.



This fixation on a theory of control, intermingled with frustrating attempts
to apply the theory to other activities, may seem dull and self-fixated and
pointless navel-gazing — and you don’t know what it felt like to be me, to
develop the foundation for my more developed Egodeath theory, until you get
a taste of this kind of self-fixated grasping, the mental life-improvement I
supposed it would lead to, and the remarkable theory that it actually did
lead to.





Key phrases: “Transcendent Knowledge” or “Cybernetic Theory of Ego
Transcendence” refers to the personal cybernetic mental control theory I
developed. “Ordinary State of Consciousness” refers to the tight cognitive
binding state. “Altered State of Consciousness” refers to the loose
cognitive binding state.





During the first few years of developing a theory of mental control while
studying at university, I had a tendency to not only desire letting go of
Theory-development, but to somehow firmly “grasp” that letting-go or fact of
having let go of it to turn my attention back: I had a kind of fixation on
the control of attention, particularly on the turning away of attention from
the cybernetics Theory, or the turning away of attention from the topic of
personal self-control. “Turn my attention away from the topic of my
personal self-control, and turn my attention toward turning it away from
that.”



I’ve always thought of the activity of academic studying as the opposite of
focusing on the personal cybernetic mental control theory. For me, such
academic engagement has stood in stark contrast with my highly consuming
focus on and pursuit of Transcendent Knowledge. For me, consciously
focusing on academic studies tends to misfire or backfire, and instead
directly calls attention to what I’m not supposedly doing: focusing on
personal cybernetics theory. I envisioned, and insisted on, focusing on
academic studies in a particular way: applying a certain model of
posi-control.



I developed a habit, from1985, of focusing/dwelling on my personal
controllership while intending to turn my attention to my intended domain of
focus (coursework studies). It’s ok to have an interest in how the mind’s
attention is directed, but when fully pursuing that interest, I suffered
from an over-self-conscious tendency, when I tried to turn of attention from
my own self-control system to the target domain — it amounted to a
control-fixation of attention. Developing a coherent model of
attention-control was much harder, more frustrating, and more profoundly
world-changing than I expected.



The harder I tried to turn my attention to academic coursework and other
non-Transcendent Knowledge concerns, the more I fixated on and grasped at my
attention-turning control, control over my attention-turning ability — my
power of turning my attention. The harder I tried to turn my attention to
coursework, the more I fixated on and grasped at (turned my attention
instead to) my very power of turning my attention. I rightly considered it
key, my power over my own thoughts, and my power of directing my attention
— the mind’s power over its own thought-direction. The power of
controlling one’s own thoughts, even if desired for mundane uses, is the key
and doorway to religious revelation.





The mundane management of one’s thought-direction links directly to
mystic-state revelation about the secret 2-level nature of personal
self-government. For good mundane conduct of life, direct your thoughts —
but really, a 2-level control-system directs thoughts. Consider the phrase
“Direct my thoughts” as applied both in the ordinary state of consciousness
and in the altered state of consciousness. Per the ordinary state of
consciousness, “direct my thoughts” means to direct one’s thoughts to the
domain to focus on. Per the mystic altered state of consciousness, “direct
my thoughts” means that the uncontrollable higher control-level directs
one’s thoughts, as a puppetmaster controls a puppet.



I refused to marry my girlfriend, almost at the beginning of college, but
instead, in effect, I knew that there was something more, and held out for
“the sacred marriage” of higher and lower levels of control — which means
the repudiation of the mental model of a single, personal control-level,
replaced by the 2-level scheme with the uncontrollable higher, transcendent
level directing the lower, puppet level of control.





Transcendent Knowledge has been directly linked for me, above all, to the
turning of my attention toward academic studies — to forcibly and
deliberately turn my mind to academic studies in the way I insisted, is to
habitually and chronically grasp at the theory of mental control and apply
that mental control-model, so that “turn your attention to academic studies”
chronically tended to backfire and become “turn your attention to how the
turning of attention works, the power of turning one’s attention”. I was
frustrated, month after long month, because although I kept making fast
progress in my theory or model of personal mental control power, I still
couldn’t apply the theory without it backfiring: I kept ending up compelled
to think about control-dynamics rather than the academic studies.



Thus the attempt to “Turn attention to academic studies” loops around to
become yet again: “Turn attention to the power of turning one’s attention”.



I suffered from hyper-self-consciousness about the attempt to turn attention
to academic studies. One could argue that this chronic frustration was a
necessary prodding without which I would never have persevered to formulate
the Theory, or that the frustration indicated a largely dysfunctional
imbalance. In my case, the imbalance and frustration was part and parcel of
the motivation to make a breakthrough theory of mental control. I knew it
was an important and powerful trap to work through. For me, the
explicitly/consciously controlled turning of my attention to my academic
studies (if done in the deliberate way I envisioned) represented or stood
for a fervently hoped-for and anticipated “success at last”.



Not even money or sex or fame was my desire and goal, but rather, the
gaining (and communication) of *that* particular personal posi-control was
my objective. I only cared about one thing in the world: my ability to
direct my attention of thought. There wasn’t a huge issue with regular task
procrastination, so much as a huge issue centered around academic studying
in particular (along with a whole long list of task items to a lesser
extent). (I did a huge amount of studying, but never the extreme that my
field and my idealistic standards demanded.)



I came upon hyper-self-consciousness about the very control-act of the
turning of my attention. This was hyper-self-consciousness, where
“self-consciousness” means particularly the control-act of deliberately
turning of directing mental attention. That’s the heart of the challenge,
which ever leaps to the fore for me within the university-library context.
That’s the key dynamic of my dysfunction that led to the theory of
Transcendent Knowledge, to the cybernetic theory of ego transcendence. “If
I could only have control over the direction of my attention and thoughts,
everything would work great” per the Human Potential self-help philosophy of
self-determination.



This project of attaining control over the direction of my attention stole
all ability to practically direct my attention (to studies etc), so the more
I tried to direct attention to academic studies, the more my attention was
directed or drawn to not academic studies, but to the dynamics of direction
of attention instead. I suffered from a kind of control-aholism, especially
a directing-of-attention-aholism. The harder I tried to turn my attention
to studies and other planned tasks (but especially studies), the more it
seemed my attention was drawn to studying the nature of the turning of
attention, including power and control-power regarding the turning or
directing of attention.



Procrastination is poorly understood, and procrastination is merely a
lead-in to the really interesting problem of the deliberate directing of
mental attention (thoughts, focus).





Key phrases:



Personal control-power and attention-direction



“The psychology of mental control” per a book subtitle



Mental control-power



Attention-direction power



Attention-direction ability



The ability to direct one’s attention





The mind, as control-agency, can be caught in a paradox both in the mundane
ordinary cognitive state and in the dissociative, altered state of
consciousness, in conjunction. In both states there is a paradox about the
ability to direct one’s attention. In both the Ordinary State of
Consciousness and Altered State of Consciousness, the mind can get caught in
the interesting trap “Don’t think about the inability to direct one’s
thoughts.”



The more I explicitly tried to not think about Transcendent Knowledge, the
more I immediately ended up thinking yet more about Transcendent Knowledge
(the dynamics and theory of thought-direction).



This explains the origin of the Theory, the originating dynamics, of why
college was hell in a strange, traumatic way for me. The traumatic origin
and struggle that gave rise to the cybernetic theory of ego transcendence.
This clear picture came about then and now because I went to very officially
(explicitly, formally, deliberately, and controlledly) enter a multi-year
phase of not developing Transcendent Knowledge, but doing academic studies
instead — while *applying* my understanding of mental dynamics of control
to those studies.



After I finished college, I was no longer much trying to forcefully direct
my attention (“posi-control”), and I was fully permitted to focus on
theorizing about mental control, so the paradox and awful aggravating
struggle of control relaxed — that is, the paradox of trying ever harder to
direct attention from self-control theory to my academic studies, but ending
up back at thinking that much more about the power of direction of attention
instead. This was the strange-loop, frustrating, paradox-dynamic that gave
rise to the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence out of the furnace of
intense sustained control-frustration.



The effort to deliberately turn attention from the theory (dynamics-model)
of self-control to academic studies leads right back to instead putting
attention on the theory of self-control. Jumping out of the semi-paradox
while successfully retaining a theory of such dynamics, mainly just requires
comprehending or spotting the looping, the natural tendency to backfire into
hyper-self-consciousness about control itself, instead of applying control
to a subject other than control-dynamics.



I found an interesting and frustrating Hofstadter-loop. Don’t think of a
white elephant — the theory of mental self-control is my white elephant as
in “don’t think about that”.



The attempt to formally (controlledly) fully turn my attention to academic
studies “but not Transcendent Knowledge” inevitably led me back and
continues to lead me back to turning attention to Transcendent Knowledge
instead of the academic studies. “Think of the academic studies, don’t
think of Transcendent Knowledge mental control dynamics.”





There is a parallel or sameness in the trap that is encountered both in the
Ordinary State of Consciousness and in the mystic-state realization. The
mundane issue of “how to deliberately and consciously direct one’s attention
and thus control one’s thoughts, away from oneself and toward an external
topic of study?” is directly connected with the mystic-state issue of “where
do control-thoughts originate from?”



The mind is drawn to the ability to control its own direction of attention,
or to its ability to trip up its power of directing attention. Back around
1986, I called my symptoms and mental problem the “inability to focus”, by
which I meant my inability to forcibly (with “posi-control”) direct and
secure my mental attention to my full satisfaction. To me, the “ability to
focus” meant “the ability to forcibly direct my mental attention”.



I placed 100% of my life-value in my ability to deliberately direct my
mental attention. Instead of producing the practical ability to direct my
attention, pursuing this thing in which I placed all value resulted in my
discovery of aspects of inability to forcibly direct one’s attention –
inability both in the mundane Ordinary State of Consciousness and in the
mystic Altered State of Consciousness.



In the mundane Ordinary State of Consciousness, the mind has a profound
inability to forcibly direct its attention.

In the mystic Altered State of Consciousness, the mind has a profound
inability to forcibly direct its attention.





To try to forcibly direct attention, is to be thrown back to the challenging
fact of inability to forcibly direct attention.



I didn’t place as much significance on my todo list items as on focusing on
my academic studies, which is why especially when I fully strove to
controlledly put attention on my academic studies, the problem of fixation
on the subject of the dynamics of attention-control became a complete
problem/fixation; then, the problem and its strange frustration completely
arose. I wanted to study control-dynamics, but I was horribly caught in
that field of brainstorming, uncontrollably so, the harder I tried to pull
out and apply it.



I was trying to “forget about” personal control theory, while simultaneously
grasping and utilizing it — that’s somewhat possible, but somewhat
paradoxical. When I tried to “apply” it, I instead fixated on it; the way I
tried to approach using my model of control-dynamics, that model didn’t
enable me to study other things, but only impeded that. The theory I was
trying to finish up (so early-on) acted as a parasite instead of a
harmonious member of a bigger healthy system.



When I try to focus on Transcendent Knowledge (mental control dynamics), I
do it, with no horrific struggle and life-killing frustration involved. But
when I try intently to secure my turning of attention away from mental
control dynamics onto other studies and tasks, my attention is forced back
to mental control dynamics, resulting in intense frustration, to the point
of turning an ok life into hellish contradiction and a puzzling, agonizing
frustration.



I was or have been cursed with a particular fixation and hyper concern with
mental control dynamics — the power of mental control. My only solution
was to map out and solve and model the problem and its dynamics — grappling
with these problems and objectives was frustrating, decades-long, but it
turned out more profound in more different ways than I ever imagined back in
the throes of developing the theory in college when I was only 3 years into
what’s now become 22 years of theory-development.





I insisted on understanding and making sense of mental control dynamics in
the mundane ordinary state of consciousness and in the mystic altered state
of consciousness. I was frustrated to the point of ending life, multiple
times along the way, but I always believed that the project would
essentially succeed in some suitable and profoundly satisfying way, as far
as forming a relevant and somehow useful breakthrough theory of personal
mental control.



To understand that this is what’s going on, is to casually make a leap to
turn attention to academic studies or other deliberate topics of focus, and
yet retain successfully retain, and secure a profound understanding of
transcendent mental dynamics — such as the transcendent origin of one’s
entire river of thoughts.



The goal for me was never simply to turn attention to a particular desired
topic, and then to another topic; but rather, to understand the dynamics of
thought-control and thought-direction in general, including the transcendent
aspects, and apply that understanding to the directing of attention in the
mundane daily realm.



I always wanted not only to turn my attention to my planned activities such
as studying a textbook, but to also retain, grasp, secure, and apply a
theory of mental control dynamics that I developed. It was all-important to
me that I not only turn my attention and focus to a chosen activity, but
that I specifically do so through grasping and applying a theory of mental
control dynamics.





Nowadays I would not say that “posi-control” or complete control of one’s
thoughts is possible or coherent, nor that life will be wonderful, mentally
harmonious, and gloriously empowered as soon as one is able to apply this
model of personal control dynamics. But I do think that a model of mental
control dynamics that understands the limitations of personal control, and
the religious ramifications, is the most valuable and profound knowledge in
the world; it *is* “self-knowledge”.



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 4597 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 12/06/2007
Subject: Re: Origin of Theory in frustrating effort for personal thought-dir
This posting covers:

The power to direct one’s thoughts; the recursive frustration that was the
origin of this Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence
(quasi-autobiographical)

“Direct My Thoughts” — The Power of Directing of Attention as the Key to
Both the Mundane and Mystic Realms


This description of my mental dynamics, and how the Cybernetic Theory of Ego
Transcendence came about, and what the traumatic struggle was about, covers
the spirit of my early notebooks (1986) as well as my final
theory-specification article. In a way, it is the most deeply
autobiographical thing I could write; you have no idea what it felt like to
be me in my most trying and formative period, until you read this
description of my frustrations, struggles, hopes, and ultimate success in
studying mental control and thought-direction power as applied to the daily
mundane state of consciousness, informed by the common reports of
control-struggles in the altered state.

My struggles and frustrations were fairly distinctive and odd this way,
since I was deliberately struggling to formulate a breakthrough theory and
model of personal mental self-control that incorporated Alan Watts’
explanation of Zen satori in terms of self-control cybernetics, as well as
Hofstadter’s leaping out from strange loops around the self-symbol, and
Wilber’s language of level-transcendence.

This fixation on a theory of control, intermingled with frustrating attempts
to apply the theory to other activities, may seem dull and self-fixated and
pointless navel-gazing — and you don’t know what it felt like to be me, to
develop the foundation for my more developed Egodeath theory, until you get
a taste of this kind of self-fixated grasping, the mental life-improvement I
supposed it would lead to, and the remarkable theory that it actually did
lead to.


Key phrases: “Transcendent Knowledge” or “Cybernetic Theory of Ego
Transcendence” refers to the personal cybernetic mental control theory I
developed. “Ordinary State of Consciousness” refers to the tight cognitive
binding state. “Altered State of Consciousness” refers to the loose
cognitive binding state.


During the first few years of developing a theory of mental control while
studying at university, I had a tendency to not only desire letting go of
Theory-development, but to somehow firmly “grasp” that letting-go or fact of
having let go of it to turn my attention back: I had a kind of fixation on
the control of attention, particularly on the turning away of attention from
the cybernetics Theory, or the turning away of attention from the topic of
personal self-control. “Turn my attention away from the topic of my
personal self-control, and turn my attention toward turning it away from
that.”

I’ve always thought of the activity of academic studying as the opposite of
focusing on the personal cybernetic mental control theory. For me, such
academic engagement has stood in stark contrast with my highly consuming
focus on and pursuit of Transcendent Knowledge. For me, consciously
focusing on academic studies tends to misfire or backfire, and instead
directly calls attention to what I’m not supposedly doing: focusing on
personal cybernetics theory. I envisioned, and insisted on, focusing on
academic studies in a particular way: applying a certain model of
posi-control.

I developed a habit, from1985, of focusing/dwelling on my personal
controllership while intending to turn my attention to my intended domain of
focus (coursework studies). It’s ok to have an interest in how the mind’s
attention is directed, but when fully pursuing that interest, I suffered
from an over-self-conscious tendency, when I tried to turn of attention from
my own self-control system to the target domain — it amounted to a
control-fixation of attention. Developing a coherent model of
attention-control was much harder, more frustrating, and more profoundly
world-changing than I expected.

The harder I tried to turn my attention to academic coursework and other
non-Transcendent Knowledge concerns, the more I fixated on and grasped at my
attention-turning control, control over my attention-turning ability — my
power of turning my attention. The harder I tried to turn my attention to
coursework, the more I fixated on and grasped at (turned my attention
instead to) my very power of turning my attention. I rightly considered it
key, my power over my own thoughts, and my power of directing my attention
— the mind’s power over its own thought-direction. The power of
controlling one’s own thoughts, even if desired for mundane uses, is the key
and doorway to religious revelation.


The mundane management of one’s thought-direction links directly to
mystic-state revelation about the secret 2-level nature of personal
self-government. For good mundane conduct of life, direct your thoughts —
but really, a 2-level control-system directs thoughts. Consider the phrase
“Direct my thoughts” as applied both in the ordinary state of consciousness
and in the altered state of consciousness. Per the ordinary state of
consciousness, “direct my thoughts” means to direct one’s thoughts to the
domain to focus on. Per the mystic altered state of consciousness, “direct
my thoughts” means that the uncontrollable higher control-level directs
one’s thoughts, as a puppetmaster controls a puppet.

I refused to marry my girlfriend, almost at the beginning of college, but
instead, in effect, I knew that there was something more, and held out for
“the sacred marriage” of higher and lower levels of control — which means
the repudiation of the mental model of a single, personal control-level,
replaced by the 2-level scheme with the uncontrollable higher, transcendent
level directing the lower, puppet level of control.


Transcendent Knowledge has been directly linked for me, above all, to the
turning of my attention toward academic studies — to forcibly and
deliberately turn my mind to academic studies in the way I insisted, is to
habitually and chronically grasp at the theory of mental control and apply
that mental control-model, so that “turn your attention to academic studies”
chronically tended to backfire and become “turn your attention to how the
turning of attention works, the power of turning one’s attention”. I was
frustrated, month after long month, because although I kept making fast
progress in my theory or model of personal mental control power, I still
couldn’t apply the theory without it backfiring: I kept ending up compelled
to think about control-dynamics rather than the academic studies.

Thus the attempt to “Turn attention to academic studies” loops around to
become yet again: “Turn attention to the power of turning one’s attention”.

I suffered from hyper-self-consciousness about the attempt to turn attention
to academic studies. One could argue that this chronic frustration was a
necessary prodding without which I would never have persevered to formulate
the Theory, or that the frustration indicated a largely dysfunctional
imbalance. In my case, the imbalance and frustration was part and parcel of
the motivation to make a breakthrough theory of mental control. I knew it
was an important and powerful trap to work through. For me, the
explicitly/consciously controlled turning of my attention to my academic
studies (if done in the deliberate way I envisioned) represented or stood
for a fervently hoped-for and anticipated “success at last”.

Not even money or sex or fame was my desire and goal, but rather, the
gaining (and communication) of *that* particular personal posi-control was
my objective. I only cared about one thing in the world: my ability to
direct my attention of thought. There wasn’t a huge issue with regular task
procrastination, so much as a huge issue centered around academic studying
in particular (along with a whole long list of task items to a lesser
extent). (I did a huge amount of studying, but never the extreme that my
field and my idealistic standards demanded.)

I came upon hyper-self-consciousness about the very control-act of the
turning of my attention. This was hyper-self-consciousness, where
“self-consciousness” means particularly the control-act of deliberately
turning of directing mental attention. That’s the heart of the challenge,
which ever leaps to the fore for me within the university-library context.
That’s the key dynamic of my dysfunction that led to the theory of
Transcendent Knowledge, to the cybernetic theory of ego transcendence. “If
I could only have control over the direction of my attention and thoughts,
everything would work great” per the Human Potential self-help philosophy of
self-determination.

This project of attaining control over the direction of my attention stole
all ability to practically direct my attention (to studies etc), so the more
I tried to direct attention to academic studies, the more my attention was
directed or drawn to not academic studies, but to the dynamics of direction
of attention instead. I suffered from a kind of control-aholism, especially
a directing-of-attention-aholism. The harder I tried to turn my attention
to studies and other planned tasks (but especially studies), the more it
seemed my attention was drawn to studying the nature of the turning of
attention, including power and control-power regarding the turning or
directing of attention.

Procrastination is poorly understood, and procrastination is merely a
lead-in to the really interesting problem of the deliberate directing of
mental attention (thoughts, focus).


Key phrases:

Personal control-power and attention-direction

“The psychology of mental control” per a book subtitle

Mental control-power

Attention-direction power

Attention-direction ability

The ability to direct one’s attention


The mind, as control-agency, can be caught in a paradox both in the mundane
ordinary cognitive state and in the dissociative, altered state of
consciousness, in conjunction. In both states there is a paradox about the
ability to direct one’s attention. In both the Ordinary State of
Consciousness and Altered State of Consciousness, the mind can get caught in
the interesting trap “Don’t think about the inability to direct one’s
thoughts.”

The more I explicitly tried to not think about Transcendent Knowledge, the
more I immediately ended up thinking yet more about Transcendent Knowledge
(the dynamics and theory of thought-direction).

This explains the origin of the Theory, the originating dynamics, of why
college was hell in a strange, traumatic way for me. The traumatic origin
and struggle that gave rise to the cybernetic theory of ego transcendence.
This clear picture came about then and now because I went to very officially
(explicitly, formally, deliberately, and controlledly) enter a multi-year
phase of not developing Transcendent Knowledge, but doing academic studies
instead — while *applying* my understanding of mental dynamics of control
to those studies.

After I finished college, I was no longer much trying to forcefully direct
my attention (“posi-control”), and I was fully permitted to focus on
theorizing about mental control, so the paradox and awful aggravating
struggle of control relaxed — that is, the paradox of trying ever harder to
direct attention from self-control theory to my academic studies, but ending
up back at thinking that much more about the power of direction of attention
instead. This was the strange-loop, frustrating, paradox-dynamic that gave
rise to the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence out of the furnace of
intense sustained control-frustration.

The effort to deliberately turn attention from the theory (dynamics-model)
of self-control to academic studies leads right back to instead putting
attention on the theory of self-control. Jumping out of the semi-paradox
while successfully retaining a theory of such dynamics, mainly just requires
comprehending or spotting the looping, the natural tendency to backfire into
hyper-self-consciousness about control itself, instead of applying control
to a subject other than control-dynamics.

I found an interesting and frustrating Hofstadter-loop. Don’t think of a
white elephant — the theory of mental self-control is my white elephant as
in “don’t think about that”.

The attempt to formally (controlledly) fully turn my attention to academic
studies “but not Transcendent Knowledge” inevitably led me back and
continues to lead me back to turning attention to Transcendent Knowledge
instead of the academic studies. “Think of the academic studies, don’t
think of Transcendent Knowledge mental control dynamics.”


There is a parallel or sameness in the trap that is encountered both in the
Ordinary State of Consciousness and in the mystic-state realization. The
mundane issue of “how to deliberately and consciously direct one’s attention
and thus control one’s thoughts, away from oneself and toward an external
topic of study?” is directly connected with the mystic-state issue of “where
do control-thoughts originate from?”

The mind is drawn to the ability to control its own direction of attention,
or to its ability to trip up its power of directing attention. Back around
1986, I called my symptoms and mental problem the “inability to focus”, by
which I meant my inability to forcibly (with “posi-control”) direct and
secure my mental attention to my full satisfaction. To me, the “ability to
focus” meant “the ability to forcibly direct my mental attention”.

I placed 100% of my life-value in my ability to deliberately direct my
mental attention. Instead of producing the practical ability to direct my
attention, pursuing this thing in which I placed all value resulted in my
discovery of aspects of inability to forcibly direct one’s attention –
inability both in the mundane Ordinary State of Consciousness and in the
mystic Altered State of Consciousness.

In the mundane Ordinary State of Consciousness, the mind has a profound
inability to forcibly direct its attention.
In the mystic Altered State of Consciousness, the mind has a profound
inability to forcibly direct its attention.


To try to forcibly direct attention, is to be thrown back to the challenging
fact of inability to forcibly direct attention.

I didn’t place as much significance on my todo list items as on focusing on
my academic studies, which is why especially when I fully strove to
controlledly put attention on my academic studies, the problem of fixation
on the subject of the dynamics of attention-control became a complete
problem/fixation; then, the problem and its strange frustration completely
arose. I wanted to study control-dynamics, but I was horribly caught in
that field of brainstorming, uncontrollably so, the harder I tried to pull
out and apply it.

I was trying to “forget about” personal control theory, while simultaneously
grasping and utilizing it — that’s somewhat possible, but somewhat
paradoxical. When I tried to “apply” it, I instead fixated on it; the way I
tried to approach using my model of control-dynamics, that model didn’t
enable me to study other things, but only impeded that. The theory I was
trying to finish up (so early-on) acted as a parasite instead of a
harmonious member of a bigger healthy system.

When I try to focus on Transcendent Knowledge (mental control dynamics), I
do it, with no horrific struggle and life-killing frustration involved. But
when I try intently to secure my turning of attention away from mental
control dynamics onto other studies and tasks, my attention is forced back
to mental control dynamics, resulting in intense frustration, to the point
of turning an ok life into hellish contradiction and a puzzling, agonizing
frustration.

I was or have been cursed with a particular fixation and hyper concern with
mental control dynamics — the power of mental control. My only solution
was to map out and solve and model the problem and its dynamics — grappling
with these problems and objectives was frustrating, decades-long, but it
turned out more profound in more different ways than I ever imagined back in
the throes of developing the theory in college when I was only 3 years into
what’s now become 22 years of theory-development.


I insisted on understanding and making sense of mental control dynamics in
the mundane ordinary state of consciousness and in the mystic altered state
of consciousness. I was frustrated to the point of ending life, multiple
times along the way, but I always believed that the project would
essentially succeed in some suitable and profoundly satisfying way, as far
as forming a relevant and somehow useful breakthrough theory of personal
mental control.

To understand that this is what’s going on, is to casually make a leap to
turn attention to academic studies or other deliberate topics of focus, and
yet retain successfully retain, and secure a profound understanding of
transcendent mental dynamics — such as the transcendent origin of one’s
entire river of thoughts.

The goal for me was never simply to turn attention to a particular desired
topic, and then to another topic; but rather, to understand the dynamics of
thought-control and thought-direction in general, including the transcendent
aspects, and apply that understanding to the directing of attention in the
mundane daily realm.

I always wanted not only to turn my attention to my planned activities such
as studying a textbook, but to also retain, grasp, secure, and apply a
theory of mental control dynamics that I developed. It was all-important to
me that I not only turn my attention and focus to a chosen activity, but
that I specifically do so through grasping and applying a theory of mental
control dynamics.


Nowadays I would not say that “posi-control” or complete control of one’s
thoughts is possible or coherent, nor that life will be wonderful, mentally
harmonious, and gloriously empowered as soon as one is able to apply this
model of personal control dynamics. But I do think that a model of mental
control dynamics that understands the limitations of personal control, and
the religious ramifications, is the most valuable and profound knowledge in
the world; it *is* “self-knowledge”.
Group: egodeath Message: 4598 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 12/06/2007
Subject: Re: Origin of Theory in frustrating effort for personal thought-dir
Clarification of ‘this’:
>>To understand that this is what’s going on, is to casually make a leap to
turn attention to academic studies or other deliberate topics of focus, and
yet retain successfully retain, and secure a profound understanding of
transcendent mental dynamics — such as the transcendent origin of one’s
entire river of thoughts.

That paragraph should read:


The effort to make the mind focus on a subject while consciously applying a
theory of focus and mental control, tends to backfire and cause the main
focus to shift to control-theory. The only practical solution is to simply
acknowledge these natural dynamics and casually make a leap to turn
attention to academic studies or other deliberate topics of focus. Such a
casual leap retains and “secures” well enough (lives compatibly with) an
understanding of transcendent mental dynamics — such as understanding the
transcendent origin of one’s entire river of thoughts.


For me, necessarily as the theorist who was deliberately developing this
theory of personal control, it was practically impossible to focus my
attention fully on other topics until I completed a coherent
theory-specification per my main article
http://www.egodeath.com/EntheogenTheoryOfReligion.htm
which required some additional 17 years of research and theory-development.
Anyone who studies that article, like anyone who is unaware of the entire
field of akrasia, alcoholism, maladies of control, and self-control
struggle, is unlikely to have to suffer through these drawn-out
controlaholism problems I had to work through, which were unique to me as a
frontier theorist of personal mental control of the direction of attention.


I had to suffer these frustrations specifically because I was intent on
creating a new, specific, deep-reaching, and relevant theory of personal
control. These frustrations were the price I had to pay along the way
during the early years of developing a major theory. It may have been
possible to be a balanced person with no intense, horrific frustrations,
while formulating this Theory, but I’m inclined to picture such a
happy-go-lucky and easygoing theorist as coming up with a feeble, half-baked
theory instead, that omits half the appropriate content and scope, as I
would likely have come up with if I were more easygoing and less demanding
and extremist.
Group: egodeath Message: 4599 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 13/06/2007
Subject: Priority of discovery, ego transcendence theory as my possession
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton_v._Leibniz_calculus_controversy
raising the question as to whether or not Leibniz’s work was actually based
upon Newton’s idea. It is a question that had been the cause of a major
intellectual controversy over who first invented the calculus, one that
began simmering in 1699 and broke out in full force in 1711. … The last
years of Leibniz’s life, 1709-16, were embittered by a long controversy with
John Keill, Newton, and others, over whether Leibniz had invented the
calculus independently of Newton, or whether he had merely invented another
notation for ideas that were fundamentally Newton’s.

There’s even a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_priority_dispute,
comparable to Newton’s dispute with Leibniz for priority for the calculus.
It is extremely offensive to me that know-nothings who have nothing to
contribute to the world criticize me for maintaining ownership of the
Egodeath theory as *my* theory — I feel about that like Ayn Rand feels
about the socialist idea (as she sees it) that great innovators who create
wealth are obliged to distribute their wealth to slackers. *I* sacrificed,
*I* has to forgo marriage and be a disconnected ghost in society, *I*
sweated blood to create and systematize this theory in a world filled with
clueless academics who are deluded in deep category-errors, and then these
[expletive] slackers on the sidelines think that I should just sit aside and
invite intellectual property theft of my property? Let *them* do that with
their own wealth, if they feel that way — hypocrites! infants! slackers!


Compare Bill Gates’ open letter to the early homebrew computer
proto-industry, criticizing them for the “free code sharing” conventions
that discouraged and prevented a profit-motivated software business
industry.

If you think that ego death or ego transcendence is about letting other
people claim credit for your intellectual-property product and claim all the
financial profit for themselves, it’s *your* screwed-up notion of what “ego
transcendence” must be about. This Theory isn’t about *your* screwed-up,
misinformed preconception of what “ego” and “ego transcendence” is about
(today’s reigning incoherent and irrelevant nonsense and vague unsystematic
“spirituality” gibberish); it’s about the coherent, simple, explicit,
elegant system I have managed — unlike anyone else — to pull together.

You might as well give away your house, clothes, and undergarment, and
organs, leaving you broke and naked and dead, and claim that that’s what
“ego transcendence is about”. Anyone who says I shouldn’t protect my
systematized Theory of ego transcendence as my intellectual property and no
other’s, I demand this of you by the same token: give away all your property
and organs. Otherwise, you are a posturing hypocrite, a superficial flake,
an idle chattering slacker who has no idea of the realities of creating
value and actually adding something of value to the world.

I’ve posted about people who have tried to steal Ken Wilber’s theory,
robbing him. This write-up is currently at
http://www.egodeath.com/CopyrightPriorityInnovation.htm — a page which is
correct and appropriate, and functionally serviceable, but which should be
shortened and cleaned-up.

(See also my thread about priority of discovery.)
Group: egodeath Message: 4600 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 13/06/2007
Subject: Objective: encyl., become must-mention theorist in multiple fields,
Lately I’m happy that my main article is published to the Web and is
finished and complete — relieved that it has continued to satisfy my own
criteria, as an encapsulating summary and theory-specification, since my
1988 draft attempts. This completion permits me to catch up on the many
things I’ve sacrified in the race to complete and publish that
theory-specification. However, even though I’m on hiatus from working on
the Theory, sometimes I check my “stock value” of who’s talking about my
work, and I’m disappointed; sometimes my stock value even appears to
decrease.

At such times, I worry about how I am going to “succeed” with the theory,
whatever that means or would mean. What would make me pleased and
constitute success and recognition and influence? What is this “checking of
stock value” all about, and how do I define and reach the objective? What
exactly do I want and need to see happen in the reception and influence of
my work? Do I want to see my name included among others, or lots of links
from valued webpages?

I’m out to extensively change various fields — that’s what my life has
become about, even in my other interests as well. I’m a field-changer, an
industry-modifier, by nature — a big thinker, a revolutionary field leader,
not a status-quo member. Given how unnecessarily limited and screwed-up
things are, nothing’s worth doing unless it’s revolutionary. I’ve had
enough of reading their books within the present status-quo; I want to read
books in these fields after authors have started discussing and thinking
about *my* theory, taking my systematic theory into account in their works.
This would make for easy breakthroughs in many fields that have been
struggling with related issues. There are built-up tensions or pain-points
within these fields, and my Theory provides the ready solution.

Many individuals like my contributions within various isolated topics, but
fewer people are interested in my website as a whole or my overall theory
(as summarized in my main theory-specification article). I’ve committed to
making the theory-specification *complete*, combining multiple leading-edge
or alternative theories forbidden *any* discussion in academia, such as the
ahistoricity of Jesus and Paul, and the maximal entheogen theory of
religion. Only a very few radicals even in underground non-establishment
research, agree with my truly maximal, radical views on Jesus and Paul, or
on entheogens as the primary ongoing source of religion.

Thus I have deliberately targeted my work as 30 years ahead of its time.
Doesn’t this make me dead in the water for all time, like the NeXT computer
from Steve Jobs, which was a failure? Being decades ahead of one’s time is
as good as being dead, as good as contributing nothing at all.

How do I make the Theory, the Ego Death book, and myself as a theorist “take
off” and “catch on”, mainstream, exciting, take over the intellectual world,
get credit, and get attention in a good way? What do I want for “success”;
how, logically, is “success” defined in this particular Theory development
activity? How do I envision my “desired success”? “Stock value”, fame,
respect — the theory as *my* theory? The theory and me and the book and
the website, are like tracking the “stock value” of the Ken Wilber franchise
or the Alan Watts franchise. How do I connect with my potential audience?
What does such connecting look like? What’s my vision for the nature of my
success? How is the world to think of me? ( = my field, my book, my theory
)

Objective: mainstream scholars are all talking about the theory as my
theory; my theory and my name becoming mainstream and synonymous. The
“stock value” of the “Einstein” or “Newton” franchise — that value was
*not* immediately established, just as the Web’s value wasn’t; when Tim
Berners-Lee first invented and recommended HTTP/HTML/URLs to the Hypertext
research and Computer Science community, the reaction was “URLs? The World
Wide Web? That’s a stupid idea”. He had to actually fight to get any
attention. Now the Web is equated with Tim B-L and has priceless “stock
value”.

After an intellectual creation has become established, we tend to imagine
the “stock value” of an intellectual (and their work) as instantly going
from zero to infinite. Usually the rise of their “stock value” is somewhat
more rocky and halting. What appears as instantaneous in retrospect, wasn’t
so clear while in the midst of it. Around 1988, Microsoft employees sold
all their stock — which would’ve been worth millions soon — thinking that
Microsoft would remain an unknown company and the stock value had peaked.

Einstein is a good example: patent office, articles out of nowhere,
seemingly (to us now) “instant” fame of the theory and of the person
together … and his struggles and controversies, and sidelining, and dismay
at what’s done with his theory for bombs. I’m not aware of anyone
attempting to steal credit for his ideas, or to claim that there’s nothing
innovative in them. I’d need to publish decent papers/articles in “peer
reviewed academic journals” and then publish a book or two, and do the
lecture circuits, present at conferences — that’s the normal approach,
which admittedly I would wish a scholar to do; however, note that Wilber
didn’t do the lecture/signing circuit.

The conventional established traditional approach for scholars’ fame and
influence and “stock value” and “hot property” of the researcher and their
work is through papers in “peer reviewed” journals in “the particular
field”; the lecture circuit (universities or bookstores); and publish books
— then to “track the value of your stock”, you track book sales and number
of citations (like Google’s PageRank, looking at how many respected links
are made to your work), number of mentions in the news, and so on.

But my innovation is inherently cross-disciplinary; that’s one of my
greatest challenges for conventional type of
success/hot-property/theorist-fame. As far as fame, influence, name-making,
Einstein has been my model — and Newton. I admire Wilber’s
ideas/framework, but his fame is merely on a cult-following level. In this
post-modern era, there’s less monolithic culture thus less room for
individual giant figures. Become a giant, become the face of no-Historical
Jesus (turning upside down the entire academic paradigm in Christian
religion), and … I don’t want anyone to ever write anything about
determinism without mentioning me, or about religion or HJ or mysticism
without mentioning me ( = my theory, = the Cybernetic Theory of Ego
Transcendence), or entheogens.

Damn Wikipedia for removing links that people had added to my site from the
Determinism article and from the Entheogens article — removed basically of
course because my work is too frontier, and too trans/cross-disciplinary,
and not formal and establishment enough, not “peer-reviewed”.

The Objective logically must be to become a must-mention figure/theorist in
any article, like mentioning Hofmann is required in any article about
Entheogens, like Einstein is required in any general article about Physics,
like Newton in any history of the rise of the Modern era. They say Ken
Wilber will be “the Einstein of consciousness”. The objective for me must
be, to be recognized as the Newton of the field of domain ___ — what
specialized field or domain?

“Cognitive Science Entheogen theory”? For example, Benny Shanon’s Cognitive
Psychology of Entheogens theory, or Douglas Hofstadter’s strange-loop theory
of the self.

“Cognitive Science of Religious Experiencing/Mysticism”?

Altered-state personal control theory, altered-state insight, CogSci of
alt-state? Should this Theory become simply equated with the field of
“Entheogens”, or “Theory of Mysticism”?

The theory is a new trans- or cross-disciplinary theory. My challenge is
that I’m creating a new field, even if it addresses and explains some old
content, including fields that died out upon the rise of the modern era. I
have labeled this field ‘Transcendent Knowledge’, which happens to involve
Determinism, Historicity of Jesus, New Testament studies, Ancient Religion,
Mysticism, Entheogens, Cybernetics, Dissociation, … I’m striving to be the
Newton or Einstein of a field, but of a field that doesn’t exist (sort of
like the way the field of Physics, first labeled ‘Natural Philosophy’,
didn’t exist before Newton).

How are people to think of me/my theory/my field? Of course the missing
solution to everything (including the fields of Mythology, Religion studies,
Theology, Mystery Religion scholarship, Mysticism, metaphysical
enlightenment (modern pop spirituality), ahistoricity of
Jesus/Paul/apostles) is trans-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary – that’s
the only way people could lack understanding for so long, by the “solution”
to all their fields being a solution that must *span* a set of fields that
no one has thought to span before.

I label the *theory* as “The Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence”, and it
seems I name the *field* “Transcendent Knowledge” — that’s the label I’ve
used for the virtual or effective field that spans the existing commonly
known “fields” in this fragmented, specialized, modern era.

Compare the title of Newton’s book (Philosophiae Naturalis Principia
Mathematica (1687)) or Einstein’s articles (The Theory of Invariance) versus
the name of the field (Natural Philosophy aka Physics, and Relativity). I’m
post-modern in this sense — working *across* the modern field divisions
between the “separate fields” of “Free Will vs. Determinism”, “Religion”,
“Philosophy”, “Ancient Mystery Religions”, “Cybernetics”, “Cognitive
Science”, “Mysticism”, “Mythology”, “Entheogens”, “Abnormal Psychology”, and
“Western Esotericism”. *That* is my challenge: I have to alter the modern
landscape of how the fields or domains are laid out. *Of course*,
inherently, the killer Theory is going to cut across domains in an
unfamiliar, strange, hard-to-grasp new way.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein
>>In 1905, while working in the patent office, Einstein published four times
in the Annalen der Physik. These are the papers that history has come to
call the Annus Mirabilis Papers … All four papers are today recognized as
tremendous achievements … At the time, however, they were not noticed by
most physicists as being important, and many of those who did notice them
rejected them outright. Some of this work-such as the theory of light
quanta-would remain controversial for years.

My problem is not just to name the theory or article or book right, but way
more — to name the *field* right. And part of the problem is the modern
construct of “field”, with hyper-specialization that caused the blindness.
I have to not only create my own audience, but create my own field —
comparable to Newton creating the modern field of Physics, and somewhat like
Einstein’s Relativity subfield he created. This theory/article/book/field
is a new systematization of old pre-modern knowledge (esoteric/mystic — a
sort of pre-modern, mystic version of Cog Science; as though I’m recovering
a pre-modern field and systematizing/modernizing it.

Does my Theory constitute the jewel of the field of “loose-cognition theory
and mental model transformation”? Or the field of “Cognitive Conversion” or
“Cognitive Transformation” (compare the book/title Conceptual Revolutions)?
The challenge is almost as if I am creating a new field called “Conceptual
Revolution”.

If Newton invented the Modern era by creating modern Physics, I’m having to
invent the post-modern era by creating the field called ___. This newly
defined, outlined, and framed field is definitive of an era or change of
eras. At present I (my theory, the theory I discovered, developed, and
systematized) can’t catch on, because there’s no one single specific field
yet — by definition and design of the modern division of knowledge, way of
dividing-up knowledge fields — for me to revolutionize. I’m doing a
revolutionizing across the fields of Religion, Mysticism, some aspects of
Cognitive Science, some aspects of Physics, phenomenology of Entheogens, and
Western Esotericism. I’m revolutionarily transforming/modifying some 10-15
fields all together (or, the theory I systematized does this).

This Theory not only defines a new field, but, like Newton’s effects, causes
many fields to be transformed. Creating the theory required transforming
fields and combining these fields in their transformed version; thus
similarly, for the theory to catch on, requires transforming (in the public
collective knowledge-base and way of thinking) these various fields. I’m
not done, not satisfied, not successful in communicating this Theory, until
these various fields have been publically transformed, somewhat like
Newton’s new field (modern Physics) influenced the approach in so many other
fields, the result was a transformation from the pre-modern to modern era.

In this sense, it is a much grander ambition to be a Newton than to be an
Einstein, as far as scope of intellectual influence and the extent of
changing how the world thinks. I grant that Einstein’s atomic bomb led to a
new, neurotic episode in the late modern era. Einstein was merely a
revolution within the modern era — although he exemplifies the inherent
postmodern aspects of the modern era — the seeds of postmodernity (for
example, the “collapse” of Newtonian physics as an authority and as a
supposed established fact) that were discovered within modernity when modern
theory was pressed to its full form and conclusions.

Einstein didn’t cause modernity to change to postmodernity, although there
are aspects of that. Overall, the modern era lasted to the late 20th
Century despite the “collapse” (or unexpected adjustments) of modern
Newtonian physics around 1905.

In conclusion, my objective must be to change the related fields and set up
a new paradigm across fields, and be spoken of as such within these fields,
with my name synonymous with the Theory, known as a field-changing Theory
affecting and transforming an unusual number of distinct fields.
Encyclopedia articles summarizing these fields must mention my Theory, as
well as comparable sources mentioning it such as articles and books in the
fields. The Theory does not have the appropriate recognition unless that
happens. That’s a good shorthand for how to track my “stock value” — as
far as an easy way to measure the success of my theory, the objective is to
have my theory mentioned in the relevant encyclopedia articles.

Measurable objective: have “Michael Hoffman’s Ego Death theory — the
Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence” mentioned in the relevant
encyclopedia articles, possibly including: Abnormal Psychology, Akrasia,
Altered states, Ancient Mystery Religions, Astrological Mysticism, Block
Time, Block Universe, Cybernetics, Determinism, Ego death, Enlightenment,
Entheogens, Free Will, Initiation, Jesus – Historicity, Metaphor, Michael S.
Hoffman, Mysticism, Mythology, New Testament, Paul – Historicity,
Philosophy, Reformed Theology, Religious Experiencing, Roman Religion,
Satori, Self-control, Theory of Religion, and Western Esotericism.

It has always been self-evident to me that this Theory is ultimately
unavoidable — even if considered to be merely a hypothesis; it’s an
unavoidable hypothesis. It follows that if people pursue and develop
thought in these fields, they will inevitably, sooner or later — no one
knows when — be led and forced to come up against this combination of
ideas, or key combinations of subsets of these ideas.

I gathered together this systematic Theory by modifying and combining fields
(and by much reading, writing, thinking, posting, and idea-development) in a
systematic, coherent way, when no one previously has been able to find
coherent, simple, clear, explicit, systematic explanations.

If substantial thinking occurs in these fields, it is inevitable that this
theory will have to be mentioned, because this theory provides the natural
and easiest solution for long-standing problems, tensions, and mysteries in
multiple fields. The theory is concerned with the right, coherent set of
topics, and defines a successful, coherent system of relating the topics.
Encyclopedias summarize the known or established fields and theories and
main hypotheses. You can determine whether something has had a mainstream
influence and presence by checking the encyclopedias.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 4601 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 14/06/2007
Subject: My necessary work on Theory is completed, other is icing
In a sense, my work is done, finished, complete, and final; I can now stop
thinking about it, and could stop forever. I am fulfilled, sated,
satisfied, and completely pleased. I have accomplished by overall, main,
basic goal: to make available a clear, simple, profound, explicit,
systematic theory of transcendent altered-state insight about personal
mental control.


At some point, I will resume work on the conference presentations,
articles/chapters, interviews (as Erik Davis & a radio host invited), and
encyclopedia entries. For the time being, until then, I’m setting up a
certain attitude of being finished, completed, and done. The world isn’t
completely ready for me yet.

It is pathetic how entheogen scholars are restricted to work and struggling
within a single field, and those who assert no Historical Jesus are chained
within an isolated narrow subfield, and each individual would-be radical
revolutionary alternative scholar is locked within a single, shut-out field.


Clearly, of course, the only way any such field is going to be able to
progress and get a clue, is for *multiple* fields to change, in conjunction
— see my posting that lists the many controversial aspects conjoined
coherently together, in concert, in synchronization.

Half-radical doesn’t fly! If you try to get an entheogen theory accepted
without turning New Testament academic notions on their head, that can only
result in half-baked nonsense, like saying that Eusebius’ church history is
correct in all ways except that Jesus didn’t exist. Only gibberish can
result from half-baked, single-field radicalism. My theory has put an end
to such half-baked single-field tepid pseudo-radicalism. Radical scholars
in each isolated field like my contributions until they find that my
concerns go far beyond their little isolated field.

I saw best-selling “Jesus ahistoricity” scholars censored by publishers when
they tried to include entheogen coverage per their previous book. This
single-field half-baked radicalism is a huge part of the problem, a major
way the lame status-quo is maintained in each of these fields.

You’re only permitted to modify a single piece of the puzzle at a time —
either take a non-established stance toward entheogens *or* a
non-established stance toward Jesus’ historicity, but *God forbid* you
should attempt to be “too controversial” and take a coherent view toward
both at the same time in the same book, as Allegro basically did when he
said “no Historical Jesus, but rather, Jesus the entheogen”. That
combination of two alternative ideas is just one example.

Naturally, any real progress requires presenting an alternative view within
some ten fields all at the same time — that is not, as people are bound to
treat it, “too radical”; rather, it is the only possible way to be coherent.
It makes no sense to subtract the Historical Jesus, for example, without
also adding the entheogens, and making that the real concern of Mythology,
and seriously engaging with the pre-modern concern with heimarmene
(perceiving determinism and then transcending it).

What appears at first glance to everyone as the weakness of my theory —
that it is “too controversial in multiple fields” — is actually, in fact,
as is clear to the best critical thinkers, a great strength — that of true
*consistency*. Am I the only thinker on earth who values consistency,
across fields? That cannot be. I can see evidence to the contrary, even
though academics and publishers are too timid to attempt multi-field,
cross-disciplinary revisionist theorizing. Progress is only possible by
breaking the rule of “you may only be revisionist in a single sub-field at a
time”.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. I’ve finished
my work; I’m done, finished, completed, the Theory itself is perfected and
is visible for the entire world. If stick-in-the-mud scholars or the
general public needs more, that’s *their* problem, not my fault. I’ve done
my part, as when post-Beatles John Lennon said he doesn’t owe the public
anything. You want to misbehave, misportray, distort, and ignore the jewel
I have created and provided and readily shared? That’s *your* fault, your
problem, your idiocy.

It’s not my job to force this theory upon those who want to be perceived as
resisting it, who want to make a great show — posturing in academic style
— of ignoring and disparaging it. If you (scholars, researchers, thinkers)
want to be thick-headed, it’s *your* responsibility, not mind, to load this
Theory into your head and integrate it.

I’m not going to sit around waiting 30 years for the world to come around —
I have less important things to do. My cat needs my attention. Work it out
your own damn self. I wash my hands of this project, of “having to” promote
and distribute my Theory. I’ve already distributed it to the world, and
discussed it in slow-moving, single-field discussion groups, and emailed the
key groups of scholars.

No one can say I didn’t communicate this Theory to “my peers”. What do they
want me to do, chew their food and spoon-feed the result to them, as if I
haven’t essentially done that already? Subscribers have already seen how
hard I worked (with others) to make the main Theory-specification article a
record-breaker for profundity per page, along with clarity, of what’s held
to be the most intractable and hazy, “ineffable” topic in the world.


So, even if I plan to later do what I can to distribute the Theory and cause
various fields to be turned upside down across various fields, I’m already
finished, completed, and done. If the theory doesn’t receive collective
confirmation, too bad for the collective confirmation; the Theory is
correct.

My postings, emails, webpages, including rough articles and polished
articles, are enough to amount to handing over the perfect ultimate Theory
and solution on a silver platter. Any work I do beyond that, any lifting of
a finger, is icing on the cake. If the world is slow to take it up, so much
for the world — the Theory is correct (coherent, useful, and a solution
that works, unlike any of the others).

If the world is intent on remaining deluded, muddled, and ignorant, I don’t
care nearly as much as I cared about just finishing formulating and publicly
publishing the theory-specification. All I really care about is formulating
and publishing, for the world to have available, a concise, clear, profound,
systematic, explicit theory of concept-system transformation about self as
control-agent informed by the loose cognitive state.

All I really care about is doing that, and I have completed doing that. I
can do without reading the wave of articles and books that are transformed
based on the Theory. Thus I am free from anything like an obligation to
“make” the Theory popular and successful, and am free to “play” in life,
whether mundane life tasks or research in any domain.

Egodeath Yahoo Group – Digest 70: 2004-08-16

Site Map


Group: egodeath Message: 3520 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 16/08/2004
Subject: Judging ancient ability to distinguish myth & reality
Group: egodeath Message: 3521 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 16/08/2004
Subject: Christianity as counter-variant of Ruler Cult
Group: egodeath Message: 3522 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 16/08/2004
Subject: Re: Many clear mushroom trees in Christian art
Group: egodeath Message: 3523 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 16/08/2004
Subject: Re: Many clear mushroom trees in Christian art
Group: egodeath Message: 3524 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 16/08/2004
Subject: Re: Many clear mushroom trees in Christian art
Group: egodeath Message: 3525 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 16/08/2004
Subject: Orthodox Christianity was broad as well as narrow
Group: egodeath Message: 3526 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 17/08/2004
Subject: Divine wrath, machine dualism, prayer is to benevolent person/agency
Group: egodeath Message: 3527 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 18/08/2004
Subject: Best books about evaluating Jesus’ historicity
Group: egodeath Message: 3528 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 18/08/2004
Subject: Re: Divine wrath, machine dualism, prayer is to benevolent person/a
Group: egodeath Message: 3529 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 18/08/2004
Subject: Re: Theme of true knowledge as “remembering”
Group: egodeath Message: 3530 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 18/08/2004
Subject: Re: Theme of true knowledge as “remembering”
Group: egodeath Message: 3531 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 18/08/2004
Subject: Motivations for forming Xn orthodoxy
Group: egodeath Message: 3532 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 19/08/2004
Subject: Re: Divine wrath, machine dualism, prayer is to benevolent person/a
Group: egodeath Message: 3533 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/08/2004
Subject: Re: Divine wrath, machine dualism, prayer is to benevolent person/a
Group: egodeath Message: 3534 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/08/2004
Subject: Re: Divine wrath, machine dualism, prayer is to benevolent person/a
Group: egodeath Message: 3535 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/08/2004
Subject: Dating the wrath/compassion breakthrough
Group: egodeath Message: 3536 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/08/2004
Subject: Reposting next post corrected
Group: egodeath Message: 3537 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/08/2004
Subject: Re: Divine wrath, machine dualism, prayer is to benevolent person/a
Group: egodeath Message: 3538 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/08/2004
Subject: Six-week break from posting
Group: egodeath Message: 3539 From: egodeath@yahoogroups.com Date: 29/08/2004
Subject: File – EgodeathGroupCharter.txt
Group: egodeath Message: 3540 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 31/08/2004
Subject: Inactive discussion groups get deleted
Group: egodeath Message: 3541 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 01/09/2004
Subject: Re: Inactive discussion groups get deleted
Group: egodeath Message: 3542 From: egodeath@yahoogroups.com Date: 12/09/2004
Subject: File – EgodeathGroupCharter.txt
Group: egodeath Message: 3543 From: egodeath@yahoogroups.com Date: 26/09/2004
Subject: File – EgodeathGroupCharter.txt
Group: egodeath Message: 3544 From: egodeath@yahoogroups.com Date: 10/10/2004
Subject: File – EgodeathGroupCharter.txt
Group: egodeath Message: 3545 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 17/10/2004
Subject: Re: Humanities university courses on audio CD
Group: egodeath Message: 3546 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 17/10/2004
Subject: Nine Inch Nails as Head Music, Cross sym. no-free-will/no-sep-self
Group: egodeath Message: 3547 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 17/10/2004
Subject: Re: Christianity not about phenomena in nature
Group: egodeath Message: 3548 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 17/10/2004
Subject: Demanding commitment to precision in language
Group: egodeath Message: 3549 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 17/10/2004
Subject: Re: Motivations for forming Xn orthodoxy
Group: egodeath Message: 3550 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 17/10/2004
Subject: Eso. Rock lyrics are about drug experiences/insights, not drugs
Group: egodeath Message: 3551 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 17/10/2004
Subject: Drugs the most sound, sober, plausible, simple expl. of Xn origins
Group: egodeath Message: 3552 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 17/10/2004
Subject: Re: Motivations for forming Xn orthodoxy
Group: egodeath Message: 3553 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 17/10/2004
Subject: History of interrelating sociopolitical and mystic-state experienti
Group: egodeath Message: 3554 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 17/10/2004
Subject: Astral ascent mysticism influential in Hellenistic religions
Group: egodeath Message: 3555 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 17/10/2004
Subject: King fastened cross aptly repres. no-free-will and no-sep.-self
Group: egodeath Message: 3556 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 18/10/2004
Subject: 1960s Psychedelic compilation CDs, picking lyrics
Group: egodeath Message: 3557 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 18/10/2004
Subject: Why wisdom seekers must understand mythic metaphor in existing reli
Group: egodeath Message: 3558 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 19/10/2004
Subject: Re: Why wisdom seekers must understand mythic metaphor in existing
Group: egodeath Message: 3559 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 19/10/2004
Subject: History of debasement & literalization of Christian metaphor
Group: egodeath Message: 3560 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 19/10/2004
Subject: Re: History of debasement & literalization of Christian metaphor
Group: egodeath Message: 3561 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 19/10/2004
Subject: Re: Six-week break from posting
Group: egodeath Message: 3562 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 19/10/2004
Subject: Watching memories fly by during loose cognition
Group: egodeath Message: 3563 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 19/10/2004
Subject: Re: How Jewish-themed myst.relig. predom’d pag. world
Group: egodeath Message: 3564 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/10/2004
Subject: Re: Toward a resource page for “No Historical Paul or Apostles”
Group: egodeath Message: 3565 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/10/2004
Subject: Re: Toward a resource page for “No Historical Paul or Apostles”
Group: egodeath Message: 3566 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/10/2004
Subject: Break from posting, considering changed format
Group: egodeath Message: 3567 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/10/2004
Subject: No-separate-self vs. transcending det’c universe
Group: egodeath Message: 3568 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/10/2004
Subject: Lyrics: Alice Designs, by the Sugarbeats
Group: egodeath Message: 3569 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/10/2004
Subject: Lyrics: My Friend Jack (explicit version)



Group: egodeath Message: 3520 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 16/08/2004
Subject: Judging ancient ability to distinguish myth & reality
Modern hubris based on the assumption of evolutionary progress leading up to
wonderful *us* leads us to sell short and underestimate the ancients. We say
the ancients “could not” tell the difference between two categories we put to
them, but in fact we don’t know what the ancients *could* think; we fail even
to understand what they *did* think; we treat our hazy distorted view of them
as a clear picture and presume to administer intelligence tests to them based
on our own off-base assumptions about what the ancients were up to, what they
were about.

We ought to say the ancients “did not” distinguish between the various modes
of the Jesus figure — at least they did not distinguish between the modes *in
the way we expect*; they were not, like us, all-concerned about neatly keeping
track of the gospel mundane narrative storyline mode of the Jesus figure vs.
the mystery mystic mythic-realm Christ. Neither were they so concerned as we
dictate they ought to have been, to neatly keep track of the mundane Caesar
vs. the divinized heavenly Caesar.

Given that we hardly have a clue about what the ideas meant to the ancients,
we are about as poorly positioned as can be imagined, to cast judgment about
the mental abilities of the ancients who compiled and reworked the various
Jesus themes into the canon. First we ought to understand their goals and
their mode of thought, before presuming to judge their capabilities. Our own
capabilities are subject to such judgment as well, by the same token that we
presume — on the shakiest of foundations — to assess the capabilities of the
canon compilers.


— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 3521 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 16/08/2004
Subject: Christianity as counter-variant of Ruler Cult
From Part 2 of the Main Articles “WHO WAS CHRIST JESUS?”
http://pages.ca.inter.net/~oblio/parttwo.htm

Christ’s promise of salvation was real to the believer even though Christ’s
death did not take place on earth.


>>”… savior gods had in some way overcome death, or performed some act whose
effects guaranteed for the initiate a happy afterlife. Christianity’s savior
god, Christ Jesus, had undergone death and been resurrected as a redeeming act
(1 Corinthians 15:3-4), giving promises of resurrection and eternal life to
the believer. This guarantee involved another feature of ancient world
thinking, closely related to Platonism: the idea that things and events on
earth had their parallels in heaven; this included divine figures who served
as paradigms for earthly human counterparts. What the former underwent in the
spiritual realm reflected the experiences and determined the destinies of
those who were linked to them on earth. For example, the original “one like a
son of man” in Daniel’s vision (7:13-14) received power and dominion over the
earth from God, and this guaranteed that his human counterpart, the saints or
elect of Israel, were destined to receive these things when God’s Kingdom was
established on earth. Christianity’s Son, too, was a paradigm: Christ’s
experiences of suffering and death mirrored those of humans, but his
exaltation would similarly be paralleled by their own exaltation. As Romans
6:5 declares: “We shall be united with Christ in a resurrection like his.”


It’s important to keep in mind the emphatic contrast between these savior gods
and Ruler Cult.

Ruler Cult was limited by mundane reality so in a competitive escalation
between myth-religion savior figures and Ruler Cult, myth-religion could
always offer bigger claims than Ruler Cult, though Ruler Cult could claim more
tangible, practical benefits in the mundane realm, as long as things went well
for the emperor, which they often didn’t, what with “emperor of the week”
making a perverse joke and laughingstock out of the overinflated claims for
the emperor’s eternal omnipotent benevolent power and benefits.

With the claims of Ruler Cult so limited and compromised by tangible reality,
this left the field open by default to the myth-religion mystery-cults to
escalate their claims infinitely, and more persuasively even if more
etherially. The difference is not so clear cut, however, what with the
awaited return of the dead but perhaps not dead Caesar. To understand
Christian themes, we must read them as compared against the Ruler Cult
backdrop: “Caesar this, but, in contrast, Jesus that.”


In the book Drudgery Divine, Jonathan Z. Smith advocates thinking of parallel
*developing* themes in the Christian, Jewish, and Pagan religions: it was not
the case that Mystery Religions had always been about mystical death then
afterlife — that was a development that came about during certain centuries.
So right away when we say “The mystery-religions were about X”, we introduce
the fallacy of static thematic content of the mystery cults.

The Christian religions were changing and multiple; same with the Jewish
religions and the Pagan religions (including Ruler Cult and its Christian
reactive revision). We have not 3 static religions, but rather, some misty,
changing, morphing, and interpenetrating clouds.


— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 3522 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 16/08/2004
Subject: Re: Many clear mushroom trees in Christian art
>>a book “History of Art” volume 1, by H.W. Janson.


History of Art
H.W. Janson, Anthony F. Janson
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0810934469

History of Art: Study Guide
Janson
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0138884471
Cover shows a mushroom table in lower left.

History of Art, Revised (Trade Version) (6th Ed.)
Anthony F. Janson
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0131828959
Group: egodeath Message: 3523 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 16/08/2004
Subject: Re: Many clear mushroom trees in Christian art
>History of Art: Study Guide
>Janson
>http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0138884471
>Cover shows a mushroom table in lower left.


Here is a quick crop and mask of the mushroom table.

http://www.egodeath.com/images/mushroomtable.jpg
Group: egodeath Message: 3524 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 16/08/2004
Subject: Re: Many clear mushroom trees in Christian art
Jesse Jones wrote:
>>About the mushroom garden from the Carmina Burana, Janson says:

“The trees, vines, and flowers remain so abstract that
we cannot identify a single species…. Yet they have
an uncanny vitality of their own that makes them seem
to sprout and unfold as if the growth of an entire
season were compressed into a few frantic moments.
These giant seedlings convey the exuberance of early
summer, of stored energy suddenly released, far more
intensely than any normal vegetation could. Our
artist has created a fairytale landscape, but his
enchanted world nevertheless evokes and essential
underlying reality.”

>>Janson seems to know a great deal about art, but he
seems not to know about the visionary plant component
of a significant portion of the art in his book, which
isn’t surprising.


The art is at
http://www.egodeath.com/images/CarminaBuranaMushroomGarden.jpg
with colors auto-balanced.
Group: egodeath Message: 3525 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 16/08/2004
Subject: Orthodox Christianity was broad as well as narrow
The diversity of types of Jesus figure in the New Testament reflects an effort
to extend and sweep outwards and then reel in everyone back into the
officially controlled fold.

So there is both expansive outreach to integrate *diverse* and wide-ranging
themes from the Hellenistic era, and, the attempt to bring all that diversity
*together* into a single officially controlled all-inclusive, top-down
controlled religion: all-inclusive, and yet also all-else-exclusive; the
Constantine-era officials wanted to reel in everyone, in such a way that they
had everyone under their control, and if anyone didn’t submit to that control,
then the rebels were held to be outside the all-inclusive broad tent, outside
the one universal religion.

Just calling this top-down controlled, canonical brand of religion “broad” or
“narrow” doesn’t capture this key dynamic, motive, and strategy. The orthodox
version of the Christian religion was “broad” in a particular way, in
conjunction with being “narrow” in a certain sense.
Group: egodeath Message: 3526 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 17/08/2004
Subject: Divine wrath, machine dualism, prayer is to benevolent person/agency
Logically, the higher uncontrollable transcendent controller — the level of
primary control standing over our secondary personal control agency — may be
coldly uncaring or antagonistic like an actual parent. We don’t need a parent
metaphorical figure perhaps, but we do need, in the peak mystic window, a
*benevolent* figure.

Don’t get the cart before the horse: the purpose of bringing in the metaphor
of ‘parent’ is because ‘parent’ is a symbol of what prayer is actually
concerned with, which is transcendent benevolence that is coupled with radical
transcendent power over the deterministic cosmos. If actual parents don’t
meet the ideal, that’s a flaw of the actual parents, not the ideal.

The ideal of a nurturing benevolent creator, which is represented
metaphorically by ‘parent’ or ‘ideal parent’, is created in the mystic mind as
a specific solution to a specific overpowering problem, a problem which is our
birthright to discover and grapple with and solve transcendently, whether or
not we choose to metaphorize the solution as ‘parent’.

We don’t need a “parent” so much as we need, more precisely, transcendent
powerful benevolence in the higher, primary level of control; we need the
uncontrollable transcendent controller to be benevolent, whether or not it is
in fact benevolent, and having an attitude toward it as benevolent turns out
to be, in practice, the urgently needed restabilizing solution to the fatal
problem of alarming control-breakdown emergency.

When the mystic comes across the emergency of self-control seizure, the
solution is transrationally postulating that there is benevolence that is
outside our personal control center, benevolence which transcends cosmic
machine-determinism. Such benevolence is well metaphorized by the figure of
‘ideal parent’, even if it is also metaphorizable — more complexly and less
clearly — as one’s own higher, transcendent, divine part of oneself, one’s
other half, one’s higher spouse or holy guardian angel.

‘Guardian’ and ‘spouse’ here both aim to convey the core important idea which
is the real payload, the idea of benevolence of powerful controllership over
one’s thoughts and movements of will, a benevolence that is not subject to
machine-determinism even while machine-determinism is fully believed and
compellingly experienced. ‘Parent’ is not the payload; it is merely the
metaphor, the symbol, the shell, the symbolic vehicle to efficiently deliver
the payload.

Similarly, mystic embracing also serves not to focus on sex so much as
benevolence; in this metaphor, wrath is associated with rape/rapture, while
benevolence is associated with consensual union.

We don’t need a parent-type person, except that we do need a benevolent
rescuer, and benevolence is often best conceived as the essence of personhood;
to be benevolent is to be a person; what the mystic fears is machine-like
uncaring, and, less so, personal wrath on the part of the primary
control-level. The latter two are closely associated: the personal wrath of
the prisonkeeper demiurge is pretty much functionally the same thing as a
machine-like uncaring block-universe that would just as soon the peak-mystic
go psychotic and lose viable stable control.

When mystics talk of hoping fervently in a benevolent controller, typically
envisioned as a nurturing parent-figure, what is the problem they are solving
by introducing this hope? They are solving, transrationally, the problem of
personal control seizure, which is envisioned as a heartless uncaring
deterministic machine-prison *and* as a fittingly evil, negative personal
prison-guard associated with this deterministic prison.

Against that aspect of divine and transcendent experiencing and conception,
stands the *non* deterministic, *non* machine-like, *benevolent* figure that
is therefore a *personal* figure. What is the best shorthand to mentally
represent a benevolent, powerful, personal figure? A nurturing parent — and
also, a king, or queen, who were conceived as bestowing divine-type acts of
exemption, reprieve, release, and rescue upon condemned prisoners. Another
similar figuration is one’s own holy guardian angel, conceived as the
divinely-associated higher part of oneself.

One function/role of dualistic religion is to attribute negative aspects to
demiurge and/or wrathful nature of an uncontrollable higher controller, and
attribute positive/benevolent aspects to radically/entirely transcendent god.

This positive benevolent faith-targeted role, on which one can pray for
transcendently powerful benevolent rescue and mercy and assistance, is a
function/role of the figure of the holy guardian angel, one’s genius, that is
a higher part of oneself, despite its being an uncontrollable controller (a
primary level control center separated from our secondary-level, personal
locus of control-agency).

There are aspects of transcendent wrath and transcendent benevolence as a
standard in world mysticism; the actual point at issue is how we choose to
metaphorically relate, unite, or separate these two aspects.

Given that our own personal locus of control is enchantingly liable and
fascinatingly susceptible to self-control failure, instability, locking up,
seizure, and breakdown (essentially connected with ‘divine wrath’), we can
leap out of rationality, as an emergency rescue move, the only possible viable
strategy being to move away from pure reason and the deterministic problem it
brings, and rely on (transrationally) an *ideal* of the benevolent figure.

Isis/Virgin Mary (the positive nurturing aspect of the Great Goddess/Great
Mother) is inherently a superior figure to God/Zeus/Jupiter, because the
mother is more likely to be nurturing than the father. The mother is more
closely associated with nurture than the father is.

The lesser importance of the ‘parent’ theme itself than benevolence also
applies to the ‘person’ theme; the main driving point is not that the
desperate mystic prays to a *personal* God, but rather, the real point is that
the mystic prays to a *benevolent* (and power-wielding) God — a God who is
first of all *benevolent*, long before he is a *person*. If mystic prayer is
to a person, that is only because such prayer is first of all to a *locus of
benevolence*, which is *later* used to define a characteristic of a ‘person’.

God is only thought of as a person because he is, first of all and most
importantly, thought of as benevolent, while benevolence is starkly contrasted
with uncaring, heartless, cold block-universe determinism. Praying to an
emphatically personal God misses the real point a bit; the real driving nature
of mystic prayer is originally first of all, praying to an emphatically
*benevolent* God, a life-sustaining, life-returning locus of control-power.

God is thought of as “personal” as a result of him first being thought of as
*benevolent*, a “first thought” which is a particular fitting solution to a
particular core problem lurking inside the mind’s labyrinth: the problem of
retaining and recovering self-control stability in the midst of full
comprehension of the experiential idea of block-universe determinism, an idea
that kills personal control stability and the claim to personal autonomy of
controllership or confidence of the personal agent’s holding and possessing
control-power.
Group: egodeath Message: 3527 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 18/08/2004
Subject: Best books about evaluating Jesus’ historicity
The Jesus Mysteries is the best book, particularly when its sequel Jesus and
the Goddess is included, because it not only presents the standard case
against the historicity of Jesus, but proposes a fairly detailed plausible
positive explanation of what the Jesus figure actually did mean to its
audience especially prior to Constantine.

This book does not commit the standard common fallacy of dissolving-away Jesus
entirely upon refuting the historicity of Jesus, nor the mistake of reducing
the Jesus figure to the literal material sun or other natural physical
entities such as vegetative fertility cycles. Instead the book portrays Jesus
within a mystic-state experiential initiation framework.

This combination of a fairly good case against Jesus’ historicity, combined
with a fairly good case for Jesus’ mystic-experiential meaning (not merely an
ordinary-state “symbolic” interpretation such as Acharya S and Alvin Boyd
Kuhn), by certain standards, makes this book the best overall book about the
historicity of Jesus, by not only providing the negative argument, but
providing the most richly compelling positive argument for what the Jesus
figure really meant within its cultural context.


Earl Doherty’s book The Jesus Puzzle is the 2nd-best book, focusing entirely
and exclusively on the negative half of the puzzle, doing an excellent job of
that, while remaining silent on the positive, alternative explanation of what
the Jesus figure did mean and what the actual origin of Christianity was.


— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 3528 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 18/08/2004
Subject: Re: Divine wrath, machine dualism, prayer is to benevolent person/a
>>mercy
>>benevolence

Add ‘compassionate’; against an uncaring deterministic machine-universe in
which one experiences being helplessly trapped and threatened by with harmful
loss of control, the advanced initiate in the peak window transcendently is
brought to pray hopefully, while lacking all rational basis, for an attitude
of compassion rather than being coerced and sucked into doing harm against
one’s usual values, just in order to permanently prove a point about the
illusory aspect of personal control power.
Group: egodeath Message: 3529 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 18/08/2004
Subject: Re: Theme of true knowledge as “remembering”
Ken Wilber in his first book The Spectrum of Consciousness (the one that
starts by omitting the Nitrous Oxide lead-in of William James’ famous passage)
originally spoke in terms similar to an original enlightened/paradisical state
from which we fell, to which we must return. But he quickly turned to
repudiate that classic idea to obsess with the pre/trans fallacy, saying we
can’t *return* to paradise since we were never there as babies — here his
mystic-metaphorical ignorance shows; here his mythic illiteracy is
highlighted.

The theme of return to an original enlightened state is not merely symbolic or
metaphysical abstract theoretical philosophy, it’s an overpowering
mystic-altered-state expeirence of remembering — a timeless type of
remembering that has nothing to do with temporal, in-time progress from
literally infantile consciousness to fully mature adult consciousness.
Group: egodeath Message: 3530 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 18/08/2004
Subject: Re: Theme of true knowledge as “remembering”
This *experience* of return to the paradisical garden is well represented by
the prominent popular theme of the angel of the lord guarding the gate of
paradise with a flaming sword. To get back into paradise, to remember the way
back into it, the advanced initiate must pass through the angel of death with
whirling sword, losing the egoic deluded self-concept of autonomous personal
controllership agency.
Group: egodeath Message: 3531 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 18/08/2004
Subject: Motivations for forming Xn orthodoxy
If we could accurately understand exactly what Constantine assigned Eusebius
to do, what the real essence, motive, and strategy of Eusebius’
task-assignment was, we’d understand so much about the actual origins and
original spirit of Christianity. Eusebius had to do a lot of goal-driven
work, strategically planned and orchestrated, to achieve what he did.

He had to round up, reach out, and take over all sorts of variants on
Hellenistic-era religious groups or continually developing traditions and
recombinations of traditions, to try to freeze this flux in order to control
and commandeer it. Reading the spirit of motives is essential; we must beware
of misreading the situation and the character of the motives. Eusebius was a
successful goal-driven man who successfully carried out a viable “literary
warfare” strategy to achieve certain powerful, specific ends and end-results.


— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 3532 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 19/08/2004
Subject: Re: Divine wrath, machine dualism, prayer is to benevolent person/a
>>mercy
>>benevolence
>>compassionate


‘leniency’ would also fit in as a peak mystic-state experience of need and
hope. After that concept is securely pinned down, then analyzing the theme of
‘forgiveness’ might be interesting. Soliciting leniency as from a powerful
and hopefully benevolent king/ruler — like experiencing oneself in the mystic
state, as a merely secondary controller, as being a puppet controlled by
strings with some mysterious uncontrollable primary controller beyond a veil.

Rulers were venerated because they were like this mystic, indirectly yet
vividly experienced hidden primary controller to which one is revealed to be a
subject. Egoic controllership, personal autonomous agency and the power it
wields, is at the full mercy of that which controls it and secretly gives rise
to it. Is the higher controller personal, is it powerful, is it benevolent?

When egoic autonomous personal control breaks down at the end of its rope and
its apparent control power vanishes, logically and experientially cancelled
out by premises including timeless block-universe fixity, it’s easy to see how
the *need* for a personal, powerful, benevolent transcendent controller arises
as a hoped-for and urgently required entity at the other end of one’s
control-ropes, to lift up and restore helpless personal power.

The hope is an intelligible hope that corresponds with, as a solution, a
particular experiential, practical problem: the problem of control evaporation
and instability in the light of the experiential comprehension of
block-universe determinism and related mystic conceptual and intellectual
constructs.

Analyze the problem side-by-side with the solution, and how the solution fits
with the problem:

o How is it that a person without God runs into a fatal problem regarding
controllership?

o How is it that this results in a need and hope for a personal benevolent
powerful primary control entity that is wholly outside the familiar locus of
one’s control power, and resides outside the system of the world (outside of
the fated cosmos)?
Group: egodeath Message: 3533 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/08/2004
Subject: Re: Divine wrath, machine dualism, prayer is to benevolent person/a
Jesus says: “Your faith has healed you.”

This is, rationally unjustified (in a way) faith in the trustworthiness and
life-sustaining nature of that weird alien thing, [that upon which you as
secondary-level control agent are dependent]; given the insight that I’m a
secondary-only controller (locus of control), this entails something else that
is the primary-level controller; this is as though directly logically implied
and logically perceived, and conceptualized — seen indirectly as in a mirror
by implication and by experience.

Is the primary controller a heartless randomizer machine that would as soon
destroy as preserve you? Or is the primary controller trustworthy? We have
no firm basis rationally and logically upon which to conclude that the primary
controller is life-sustaining and thus benevolent, but Buddha touching the
ground when confronted by the demon Mara can be read as the divine attitude:
the salvific divine transcendent and transrational attitude of reasonless
trust in the benevolence of whatever it is that is the primary controller —
and this trust has to be in place as a necessity-for-life continuance, even
when all the things that happen to the person are terrible (the story of Job).

We can wonder whether we’re placing trust in the essential goodness
(life-sustaining, non-harmful) of the ground of being, or of a personal
controller-god residing outside the ground of being, but really it is
functionally equivalent either way; the contrast is not between worshipping
the universe a la Buddhism is often said to do (Budda touching the ground) vs.
worshipping personal God; the real, actually important contrast is between not
being able to put trust in that-which-is-primary-controller, vs. being able to
put trust in that-which-is-primary-controller.

The actual essential idea is that of the secondary-level control agent having
(as a matter of life or death, viability or insane control-seizure, divine
harmful psychosis) to put trust in an alien, primary-level, remote primary
controller, in a level of controllership that is fundamentally separated from
the level of secondary-level personal control agency (the egoic personal locus
of control).

The personal locus of control *has to* be brought to put trust in the remote,
that is, *separate*, primary level of control — whether the primary level of
control is pictured as the “nonpersonal” Ground of Being, or as a “personal”
god; either object of hope still revolves around the same thing: an attitude
of dependent trust, hope, faith. You faith has saved you from harmful
control-destruction on the stormy sea of controllership instability.

We’d really be best with some apophatic or combined notion of Ground/God as
the thing “worshipped” — the thing trusted in as the primary-level locus of
control. Making real progress explanatory progress here, we must not run
first to the concept of “person”, but rather, run directly to the concepts
comprised by the concept of “person”. Before debating whether or not to
worship a personal god, vs. Ground, we must first picture the “person” idea as
being a shorthand for certain attributes: what are those attributes that we
call, for short, a divine or transcendent “person”?

Those attributes are: trustworthiness, reliability (not in the sense of
‘consistency’, but ability to be seriously relied on in a fatally urgent
life-and-death situation), being an object of hope and dependence. Can I take
an attitude of trust that [that-which-controls-me as primary-level locus of
control] is a foundation I can depend on in the mystic peak-state window of
spiritual emergency? Can the primary control level be firmly, gravely, and
seriously trusted (profoundly relied upon) during one’s moment of spiritual
emergency?

How can I, as secondary-level locus of controllership, possibly scrape
together the hope that that-which-controls me (the primary-level controller)
can be trusted when my well-being (my not-being-harmed) most urgently depends
on it?

The loosecog state enables, as a pair, both falling down (falling apart) and
repair/restructuring (the divine attitude of prayerful, arighting,
repositioning of oneself as one respectfully subservient to and *dependent
upon* the goodness, mercy, life-sustaining, non-harming nature of a newly
intuited higher control level (a level which, being a *level*, inherently is
held to be outside the secondary agent’s realm of control and command).

Deep mental restructuring both produces the problem, and the solution; the
dangerous and threatening control-seizure and the pious salvific restorative
dependent and reverent attitude that is the only hope for recovery from the
danger on the stormy sea of madness.

The loosecog state which most enables discovering the untrustworthiness and
powerlessness of personal control — discovering it to be a nothing, a merely
secondary-level control *not* the always formerly presumed primary-level,
autonomous type of controllership — also enables suddenly deeply and broadly
shifting into the alternate whole-system restructuring, of a person who has
the right, divine, life-sustaining, pious attitude.

Attitude is everything in this dire straights state of loose cog; attitude
regarding one’s now-revealed-as-secondary-only controllership to the now
revealed primary level of controllership, regarding whether one can place (and
rest) hope (and trust) upon the hidden primary locus of control, is
everything; one’s not-being-harmed fully depends wholly upon one’s attitude
toward the primary now that one has fully comprehended that one is not primary
but only secondary and now must get right in one’s attitude toward primary
controllership.

The Jesus mystery-cult has no idol except the reified figure of Jesus himself,
as the multi-level aid being of service to most easily project one’s attitude
of dependent Hope upon. The figure of a divinity such as a semiphysical Jesus
is useful to beginning mystics for certain reasons, and is useful to advanced
mystics for other reasons, even if it is possible to have divine trusting
reverential dependence without involving an idea that appears like Jesus or a
personal god.

We could divinize the Ground and treat it as the object of reverential
transcendent trusting dependence, as opposed to thinking of the Ground as
Mara-like (a demonic heartless uncaring or hostile deterministic
prison-machine). So transcendent trust in the primary level is the real
object and concern of reverential worship — neither the Ground nor personal
god is the essence of what one must reverence.

To reverence the Ground of Being (as Buddha touching the ground when
threatened by Mara) is merely a symbol, or representation, of what is actually
being reverenced: the primary level of control, to which one is now aware of
being subject. Regardless of whether the primary control level is thought of
as Ground or personal god, the real point is to summon, despite lack of
rational basis, the attitude of faith, trusting dependence and reliance upon
it.

This attitude is only possible in the mystic loosecog state and is only needed
in that state. The problem and its solution — the ability to have the
problem and the ability to manifest the solution to that problem — are both
state-specific, having really nothing to do with ordinary-state events that
one undergoes in day-to-day life. Applicability of this divine attitude of
trusting dependence can be applied to daily life, but this use of it is feeble
and a shadow of its primary usage or dynamic, which is firmly based in the
intense altered loosecog state.


‘Faith’ in a ‘personal’ god, goddess (Isis/V. Mary) or godman (Jesus) means
just such attitude of placing dependent Hope and reliance upon something that
is conceived of as higher-level primary control locus: the divinely granted
attitude of faithful trusting dependence and reliance upon a fundamentally
separate, uncontrollable (or fully discretionary and not bound) realm or locus
of control, of string-pulling to which you are consciously aware of being
subject to.

When the puppet awakens to its nature of total dependence, what attitude is
injected into it by the puppetmaster? The puppetmaster could demolish the
marionette, could make it go against its familiar desires as control-agent,
could harm it precisely through the fact that the puppetmaster has full
control over the wellspring of thoughts in the puppet’s mind.

Thus arises the idea of hope for exchange, the idea that God thrives on being
reverenced, or thrives especially on the burning smoke of sacrificed ego: I’ll
incinerate my ego delusion as food for you (worthless fat and hair,
ironically, not meat of the real me), god, in return for my keeping the
worship of you alive: I will continue to worship you, god, if you in return
don’t harm or kill me; here is the essence of the idea of negotiating with
god.

The idea there is: Our god’s goal is to keep alive by continuing to be
worshipped by us; he can’t be worshipped by us if he fails to preserve us
without harm, so we are situated to negotiate: we have something god wants
(our ego-smoke and reverential worship and glorification), and god has
something we want (the power to help rather than coerce our thoughts into
doing actions that harm ourselves).
Group: egodeath Message: 3534 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/08/2004
Subject: Re: Divine wrath, machine dualism, prayer is to benevolent person/a
‘Grace’ in standard theology refers to the mechanism by which the right
transcendent attitude is injected into the person, into the dead power of
personal controllership which has become impotnently seized. Grace is the
mechanism through which one is given faith (this is the standard concept that
defines the essential idea of Reformed theology).

The now-helpless personal agent needs a trusting attitude, but as hard as he
digs around in his resource kit, nothing coming from within his realm of
control power can possibly summon this kind of rationally baseless trusting
attitude that can restore control stability and heal the paralysis of control,
casting out the demons and resisting temptation to prove the mayhem, the
singularity-point of control which is the tomb, the death of the egoic false
king. Thinking of ‘grace’ as an *attitude* might have more of a place in
Catholic Virgin-Mary worship than patriarchal or Reformed theology.


If the mystic state is harmful, so hjarmful we must stoop so low as resorting
to prayerful non-rational reliance on a miraculously powerful alien divinity
to rescue us from our pathetic helpless needy state, why don’t we simply avoid
it? Because we seek to increase our personal control-power. The more you
increase yoru hunt for personal control-power, the more inevitably you’ll be
drawn toward the fatal attractor, the tractor beam, the maelstrom, until the
black hole gains control.

We are power-seeking controller-agents by nature; when we amplify this nature
utilzing the msytic altered state, we are bound to reach a surprising object
of our desire: total control is total control-instability, total self-control
seizure. Because we seek and pursue power, we harness the most powerful
metaprogramming toolkits, and thereby, we eventually reach the state of
psychotic unstable divine-madness control-seizure (our birthright, this
ability to climax as control-agent), and then we are divinized, made
transcendent (the second half of our religious birthright).
Group: egodeath Message: 3535 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/08/2004
Subject: Dating the wrath/compassion breakthrough
Different breakthroughs while developing a theory have difference character.
I may be onto something amounting to a distinct kind of breakthrough, since it
has always been the hardest, most ultimate challenge to write about peak
control-seizure and how it fits with causing the self-reliant rationalist to
pray and say “aha, the Jesus figure descending to my mind, now I acknowledge
prayerfully as making full sense!”

A lot of conceptual vocabulary development is needed in this late-modern era
to be adequately equipped to discuss the ins-and-outs of this dynamic, this
ultimate experience, the exact logic and cognitive dynamics behind the peak
moment of divinization and spiritual regeneration. This is a problem I’ve
been struggling with for years, and often have felt I’ve had to postpone and
merely hint at.

It’s been tough to find *viable* ways of talking about these matters — of
communicating them to other people, of putting my finger on the essence for
myself, of articulating it to any standard of intelligibility. What beautiful
horror, specifically, does one see — what beautiful horrific Medusa-Gorgon
*exactly*? Don’t mumble, don’t be evasive; be specific and explicit; don’t
beat around the bush. (1/7/04 post/thread: Circular vague exhortations to
mystic consciousness)

And, as part 2, how does prayer and divine transcendent thinking relate to
that strange problem one encounters — this must be explained in a way that
any programme rcan understand. Explain it to the rationalist self-reliant
advocates of (conventional) determinism; explain it to the no-nonsense
down-to-earth hardheads in Missouri. Explain it just like the engineering
textbooks (never mind the Copenhagenist propaganda in the Quantum Physics
textbook, ever since science has been co-opted and has turned to pimping for
egoic freewill and magical mind-over-matter).

How exactly does ego death work, and how — clearly and exactly, in plain
English — does transcendent leaping-out-of-the-system work? What is it
really all about, and don’t launch into an airy free-floating circularity: be
specific, be grounded, and really, actually explain it in comprehensible,
summarizable terms. I am at last becoming able to do this, but if this is a
breakthrough, it has been the slowest, the least instantaneous.

How have I switched from not being able to articulate and explain this
dynamic, to being able? Can a point in time be reasonably identified? Yes,
look for the moment when I fully grasped the world-religion importance of the
theme of “the wrathful and the compassionate deities”, and Kali as the killer
and revered goddess, and the wrath and mercy of God such as in Jewish
mysticism — only at this point did I also recall earlier thoughts, shocking
to Protestant readers of Dave Hunt, about Virgin Mary being worshipped as
merciful protector and intercessor and advocate against the wrathful harsh
judgment of Jesus sitting on the judgment throne at the last trumpet.

Only after I recognized the generalized theme of “wrathful vs. compassionate”
and thought of the coupling deities, did I then *put together* the many times
I had come across that theme expressed in disparate locations and
stylizations; this is a matter of pattern recognition, and there was
definitely a fairly focused point in time recently when I first perceived this
pattern of the standard pair of wrathful/compassionate, and in conjunction,
connected that to The Problem and The Solution which I had been struggling to
explain.

I knew about The Problem (of dangerous self-control instability and seizure)
and The Solution (reverent acknowledgement of the primary control level, as
one awakened to one’s secondary not primary controllership — and then, more
so, the necessity of nonrational reliance and *trust* in the alien primary
control level).

Key ideas needed along the way prior to putting the pieces together included
the uncontrollable transcendent controller, and Douglas Hofstadter’s
jumping-outside-=the-system, which naturally fit with the longer-familiar
ideas of Alan Watts regarding too-tight cybernetic feedback coupling. Also
key was Neville Drury on Giger’s paintings of machine-embeddedness, plus heavy
confirmation of various ideas (perhaps somewhat peripheral to the present
problem) while studying recently Western esotericism — that astrology’s
central idea was grappling with fatedness.

Probably the key central enabling idea and turning point was that of
wrathful-then-compassionate (as in the radio preaching in Helios Creed’s song
“Acid Rain”).


Earliest recent posts about divine wrath and compassion:


Powerfully relevant:
1/2/04 Metaphor: calming the turbulent sea


1/6/04 Love, heart, compassion, nurturing, and mercy — the words “wrath” and
“compassion” are placed near each other.

6/27/04 Why praying returns control stability

7/14/04 Cybernetics of pleading for mercy from compass t’t controller

8/2/04 Helios Creed sermon: The Bad News and The Wrath of God

8/2/04 Appease divine wrath by divine-provided infin. sacrifice, gain love

8/7/04 Wrath, trembling, modern flattening of myth-religion

8/16/04 – present thread started and sustained powerfully


It’s a real coin toss here that shows how fake, false, and unrealistic the
idea of “sudden breakthrough” often is, like the book ___ which disproves
sudden genius invention and discovery in science and technology; he shows
there is never identifiable moment of “non-normal thinking” during what’s
called a breakthrough-discovery period.

When you look at the thinking used by discoverers, at any point it is always
normal thinking; there is never a special, “creative” type of alternative type
of thinking; just merely normal problem solving, effectively sustained and
directed, including false starts that are discarded along the way; the feeling
or sense of revelation is even also productive of lots of incorrect ideas that
are soon discarded (a recent study of early modern alchemy and science makes
that point too).

However, there has been some thinking too about melancholy and genius, such as
in the Renaissance period. We do know that loose cog certainly and provably
does support non-normal, special, creative mode of thinking — even though
many modern discoveries didn’t depend on that mode of cognition.

The archives prove that I now and then for years posted on themes about
control seizure, but that recently, I built up more momentum on the subject,
an upward accelerating curve recently, and you could argue for 1/6/04 or
6/27/04 or the later points along this curve. What are the earliest and most
recent dates one could possibly pick to assert that “recently I had a
breakthrough on this topic of wrath/compassion”? Perhaps 1/6/04 and 8/18/04
are the outer dates. I think the most powerful and impactful subject title
would be

7/14/04 Cybernetics of pleading for mercy from compass t’t controller

although I still had to work out that theme over the next month.

I almost need some sort of graph to track the upward curve, to try to pin some
date (artificially) as most meaningful or representative of a “breakthrough
day”. It seems like I not only want lots of progress, I seek *sudden*,
instantaneous leaps; that is, progress concentrated into isolated moments.
Perhaps I desire that because it’s associated with satori, system-wide deep
system shift, yet these days I’m beyond such a high degree of systemic shift.

Yes, a sort of sudden pattern recognition happened with the particular theme
of “wrath/compassion”, and you could easily determine which posting had those
two words close — such as … not the lone posting 1/6/04, but rather, the
first posting that was close to the postings where I regularly spoke of
wrath/compassion aspects of deity, which is probably 8/7/04, a commentary on
‘wrath’ spurred by my denunciation of Versluis’ lame treatment of wrath in the
book I recently studied, Wisdom’s Children.

So I pick 8/7/04, I suppose, as a representative date for a breakthrough
regarding recognizing the essentially mystic-experiential meaning of
‘wrath-compassion’ deities.

I then straightaway went on to really build something substantial on this
basis starting 8/16/04, by equating, with sustained elaboration, ‘wrath’ with
‘control instability seizure’ and ‘compassion’ with the trans-rational
solution to the problem, bringing rescue and recovery of viable
controllership, as divinized and justified king who does not any longer pose
as an autonomous primary controller. I could say that my thinking or
intellectual work finally came to fruition in mid-August 2004 on this subject.

I can finally talk easily and at length about self-control seizure and
transcendent divine rescue through receiving salvific ‘faith’, that is,
trans-rational and truly, essentially religious trust in the non-harming
nature of the mysterious primary control level. Only after having posted
within the thread

8/16/04 – Divine wrath, machine dualism, prayer is to benevolent person/agency

can I at last do what I felt I had been held back on for so long, freely and
coherently discuss and explain this subject, routinely and straightforwardly
while talking directly to the essential dynamics involved. I’ve explained
many things before, but never until now have felt that I had actually, truly,
really explained the main problem of control breakdown and divine recovery,
what’s actually involved in this dynamic, in plain and direct terms.
Group: egodeath Message: 3536 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/08/2004
Subject: Reposting next post corrected
I’m reposting the next post
with typos fixed.

— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 3537 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/08/2004
Subject: Re: Divine wrath, machine dualism, prayer is to benevolent person/a
‘Grace’ in standard theology refers to the mechanism by which the right
transcendent attitude is injected into the person, into the dead power of
personal controllership which has become impotently seized. Grace is the
mechanism through which one is given faith (this is the standard concept that
defines the essential idea of Reformed theology).

The now-helpless personal agent needs a trusting attitude, but as hard as he
digs around in his resource kit, nothing coming from within his realm of
control power can possibly summon this kind of rationally baseless trusting
attitude that can restore control stability and heal the paralysis of control,
casting out the demons and resisting temptation to prove the mayhem, the
singularity-point of control which is the tomb, the death of the egoic false
king. Thinking of ‘grace’ as an *attitude* might have more of a place in
Catholic Virgin-Mary worship than patriarchal or Reformed theology.


If the mystic state is harmful, so harmful we must stoop so low as resorting
to prayerful non-rational reliance on a miraculously powerful alien divinity
to rescue us from our pathetic helpless needy state, why don’t we simply avoid
it? Because we seek to increase our personal control-power. The more you
increase your hunt for personal control-power, the more inevitably you’ll be
drawn toward the fatal attractor, the tractor beam, the maelstrom, until the
black hole gains control.

We are power-seeking controller-agents by nature; when we amplify this nature
utilizing the mystic altered state, we are bound to reach a surprising object
of our desire: total control is total control-instability, total self-control
seizure. Because we seek and pursue power, we harness the most powerful
metaprogramming toolkits, and thereby, we eventually reach the state of
psychotic unstable divine-madness control-seizure (our birthright, this
ability to climax as control-agent), and then we are divinized, made
transcendent (the second half of our religious birthright).
Group: egodeath Message: 3538 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/08/2004
Subject: Six-week break from posting
I did a so-so job of not posting before; I ended up posting certain
discoveries I wanted to provably date, and posted in another group and in my
weblog. I vow not to post through September.

I have written enough; just follow through on that line of analysis.


— Michael Hoffman
http://www.egodeath.com — simple theory of the ego-death and rebirth
experience. The essence, paradigm, origin, and fountainhead of religion is
the use of visionary plants to routinely trigger the intense mystic altered
state, producing loose cognitive association binding, which then produces an
experience of frozen block-universe determinism with a single, pre-existing,
ever-existing future. The return of the ordinary state of consciousness is
allegorized as a transcendence of Necessity or cosmic determinism. Myth
describes this mystic-state experience. Initiation is classically a series of
some 8 visionary-plant sessions, interspersed with study of perennial
philosophy. Most religion is a distortion, corruption, literalization, and
cooptation of this standard initiation system.
Group: egodeath Message: 3539 From: egodeath@yahoogroups.com Date: 29/08/2004
Subject: File – EgodeathGroupCharter.txt
This text file is automatically posted to the Egodeath Yahoo group every two
weeks.

The Egodeath Yahoo group is a newsletter or Weblog sent out by Michael Hoffman.


This Yahoo group covers the cybernetic theory of ego death and
ego transcendence, including:

o Nonreductionistic block-universe determinism/Fatedness, the closed
and preexisting future, tenseless time, free will as illusory, the
holographic universe, and predestination and Reformed theology.

o Cognitive science, mental construct processing, mental models,
ontological idealism, contemporary metaphysics of the continuant
self, cybernetic self-control, personal control agency, moral agency,
and self-government.

o Zen satori, short-path enlightenment, and Alan Watts;
transpersonal psychology, Ken Wilber, and integral theory.

o Entheogens and psychedelic drugs, the Eleusinian mysteries and
cracking the allegorical code of the mystery religions, mythic
metaphor and allegorical encoding, the mystic altered state, mystic
and religious experiencing, visionary states, religious rapture, and
Acid Rock mysticism.

o Loss of control, self-control seizure, cognitive instability, and
psychosis and schizophrenia.


To post on these subjects, you can join the group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeathunmoderated
and then send email to:
egodeathunmoderated@yahoogroups.com


— Michael Hoffman
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath
http://www.egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 3540 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 31/08/2004
Subject: Inactive discussion groups get deleted
Whenever I refrain from posting, I wonder what the Yahoo policies are on
removing dead groups. If I want to keep christconunmod alive, I have to post
or someone has to.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/christconunmod/


—–Original Message—–
From: notify@yahoogroups.com [mailto:notify@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Monday, August 30, 2004 3:38 AM
To: christconunmod-owner@yahoogroups.com
Subject: First warning: your group christconunmod will soon be deleted


Dear Yahoo! Groups Moderator,

IMPORTANT NOTICE:

Your group, christconunmod, has been marked as inactive, because it has
had no message activity in the last 90 days or currently has fewer
than 2 members. If the group remains inactive for another 30 days, we
will delete the group.

REACTIVATE YOUR GROUP NOW:
If you would like to keep your group, choose one of the following options:

1) Use the group now. All you have to do is post a message
and make sure there are at least 2 people in the group.

2) Request an extension

To do either, or for more information please visit:


IF YOU DO NOTHING, YOUR GROUP WILL BE DELETED IN 30
DAYS AND ALL OF YOUR GROUP’S DATA WILL BE PERMANENTLY DELETED.

Sincerely,

The Yahoo! Groups Team

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Group: egodeath Message: 3541 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 01/09/2004
Subject: Re: Inactive discussion groups get deleted
Discusssion group community death and rebirth experience



From: notify@yahoogroups.com [mailto:notify@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 01, 2004 3:21 AM
To: christconunmod-owner@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Congratulations! Your group christconunmod has been
reactivated.

Dear Yahoo! Groups group Owner/Moderator,

Due to recent activity, your group christconunmod has been removed
from inactive status and will no longer be deleted. Welcome back!
After 90 days, we’ll check your group again. Until then,
enjoy the group.

Thanks for using the Yahoo! Groups service.

Sincerely,

The Yahoo! Groups Team

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Group: egodeath Message: 3542 From: egodeath@yahoogroups.com Date: 12/09/2004
Subject: File – EgodeathGroupCharter.txt
This text file is automatically posted to the Egodeath Yahoo group every two
weeks.

The Egodeath Yahoo group is a newsletter or Weblog sent out by Michael Hoffman.


This Yahoo group covers the cybernetic theory of ego death and
ego transcendence, including:

o Nonreductionistic block-universe determinism/Fatedness, the closed
and preexisting future, tenseless time, free will as illusory, the
holographic universe, and predestination and Reformed theology.

o Cognitive science, mental construct processing, mental models,
ontological idealism, contemporary metaphysics of the continuant
self, cybernetic self-control, personal control agency, moral agency,
and self-government.

o Zen satori, short-path enlightenment, and Alan Watts;
transpersonal psychology, Ken Wilber, and integral theory.

o Entheogens and psychedelic drugs, the Eleusinian mysteries and
cracking the allegorical code of the mystery religions, mythic
metaphor and allegorical encoding, the mystic altered state, mystic
and religious experiencing, visionary states, religious rapture, and
Acid Rock mysticism.

o Loss of control, self-control seizure, cognitive instability, and
psychosis and schizophrenia.


To post on these subjects, you can join the group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeathunmoderated
and then send email to:
egodeathunmoderated@yahoogroups.com


— Michael Hoffman
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath
http://www.egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 3543 From: egodeath@yahoogroups.com Date: 26/09/2004
Subject: File – EgodeathGroupCharter.txt
This text file is automatically posted to the Egodeath Yahoo group every two
weeks.

The Egodeath Yahoo group is a newsletter or Weblog sent out by Michael Hoffman.


This Yahoo group covers the cybernetic theory of ego death and
ego transcendence, including:

o Nonreductionistic block-universe determinism/Fatedness, the closed
and preexisting future, tenseless time, free will as illusory, the
holographic universe, and predestination and Reformed theology.

o Cognitive science, mental construct processing, mental models,
ontological idealism, contemporary metaphysics of the continuant
self, cybernetic self-control, personal control agency, moral agency,
and self-government.

o Zen satori, short-path enlightenment, and Alan Watts;
transpersonal psychology, Ken Wilber, and integral theory.

o Entheogens and psychedelic drugs, the Eleusinian mysteries and
cracking the allegorical code of the mystery religions, mythic
metaphor and allegorical encoding, the mystic altered state, mystic
and religious experiencing, visionary states, religious rapture, and
Acid Rock mysticism.

o Loss of control, self-control seizure, cognitive instability, and
psychosis and schizophrenia.


To post on these subjects, you can join the group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeathunmoderated
and then send email to:
egodeathunmoderated@yahoogroups.com


— Michael Hoffman
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath
http://www.egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 3544 From: egodeath@yahoogroups.com Date: 10/10/2004
Subject: File – EgodeathGroupCharter.txt
This text file is automatically posted to the Egodeath Yahoo group every two
weeks.

The Egodeath Yahoo group is a newsletter or Weblog sent out by Michael Hoffman.


This Yahoo group covers the cybernetic theory of ego death and
ego transcendence, including:

o Nonreductionistic block-universe determinism/Fatedness, the closed
and preexisting future, tenseless time, free will as illusory, the
holographic universe, and predestination and Reformed theology.

o Cognitive science, mental construct processing, mental models,
ontological idealism, contemporary metaphysics of the continuant
self, cybernetic self-control, personal control agency, moral agency,
and self-government.

o Zen satori, short-path enlightenment, and Alan Watts;
transpersonal psychology, Ken Wilber, and integral theory.

o Entheogens and psychedelic drugs, the Eleusinian mysteries and
cracking the allegorical code of the mystery religions, mythic
metaphor and allegorical encoding, the mystic altered state, mystic
and religious experiencing, visionary states, religious rapture, and
Acid Rock mysticism.

o Loss of control, self-control seizure, cognitive instability, and
psychosis and schizophrenia.


To post on these subjects, you can join the group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeathunmoderated
and then send email to:
egodeathunmoderated@yahoogroups.com


— Michael Hoffman
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath
http://www.egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 3545 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 17/10/2004
Subject: Re: Humanities university courses on audio CD
Whenever I order a lecture course from http://teachco.com, an envelope arrives
soon after receiving the lectures, containing a coupon. This is probably a
routine marketing strategy of giving an incentive to buy, because these are
time-limited coupons, only good for a couple months or so.

Barnes & Noble has a new lecture course series — I’d like to know what
TeachCo says about this, regarding their legally protected and defended
patent/copyright.
Group: egodeath Message: 3546 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 17/10/2004
Subject: Nine Inch Nails as Head Music, Cross sym. no-free-will/no-sep-self
Nine Inch Nails as Head Music. The Cross as an elegant efficient
representation of no-free-will and no-separate-self.


Someone wrote:
>>I am trying to locate on your website what you have to say about Nine Inch
Nails. I am interested in ego death. I have schizoaffective disorder and have
experienced aspects of this. I often have a strong feeling of having no free
will and being controlled by God. I also derive deep spiritual meanings from
rock lyrics, including Nine Inch Nails. I am interested in nondualistic
perspectives. I’m trying to figure out if God really exists and if God is
communicating with me.


Much of Nine Inch Nails, including the live concert experience, is Head
Music” — a broadly useful music genre term. That is, much of NIN is about
the phenomena experienced in the LSD-induced mystic altered state. The lyrics
are worth analyzing and I have analyzed the lyrics but I don’t know if I have
written and posted about NIN specifically (I’d have to do a couple searches —
perhaps I posted about it prior to starting the discussion group). I’m not
into 60s psych or Metal or Heavy Rock or Prog or Goth — rather, I’m into head
music, which is actual Acid Rock in the broad sense.

Rock has an ongoing perennial esoteric tradition that transcends genres, of
head music, which is acid-inspired, above all.

Real Rock (valuable Rock) is mystic Rock; non-mystic Rock is disposable, of
little real worth. Genres are not the essential factor; the intense mystic
state is the essential factor and is most typically, for most people, accessed
through ingesting external visionary chemicals.


I value additional confirmation that no-free-will is an important
mystic-religious theme. Too many writers put all emphasis on the feeling of
mystic unity (the no-separate-self experiential insight), so that the main
missing link, the real key to religious revelation, is the experiential
insight of no-free-will, which is exactly the core meaning of the cross of
Christ, which is, first of all, a *king-claimant* on a cross; that is, a
would-be king helplessly fastened to the material realm.

What does the cross show, plainly? It shows a kingly figure fastened to wood,
so we have to ask, what is the profound transcendent meaning of the symbol of
“a kingly figure fastened helplessly to wood”? There is more; this figure
goes into a cave-like tomb, then ascends to heaven to rule as high king — but
even without those mystic themes, just look at the simple plain symbol of the
kingly figure fastened helplessly to wood: what does it mean; how does it
connect to schizophrenic loose-cognition intense mystic insight and
revelation?

What does the figure of king helplessly attached to cross indicate and say
regarding mystic insight and religious revelation? First of all, it says “the
no-free-will experiential insight”, really it combines both the revelation of
no-separate-self (the fastening to the material wood or “tree”, shown in many
equivalent mythemes) *and* the revelation of no-free-will (the arrested and
seized *king* figure).

‘Helpless king claimant’ means the no-free-will experiential insight, and
‘fastened to tree-like cross’ means the no-separate-self experience. So the
cross, when correctly classically and canonically portrayed with a kingly
figure fastened to it, is a particularly efficient, direct, and
straightforward symbol that almost directly portrays both the no-free-will and
no-separate-self experiential insights.


It’s simple: the schizophrenic mind produces excessive DMT in the pineal
gland, causing involuntary tripping (some fluctuating degree of loose
cognition, loosening of mental construct association binding), and this
tripping produces the standard range of intense mystic altered state
experiences and insights that are classically induced by religious use of
visionary plants.

The cure for schizophrenia is some chemical that effectively counteracts the
excess DMT or DMT-like chemical overproduced by the schizophrenic brain.
People ought to understand mystic experiential insight and ought to recognize
that visionary plants have always been by far the main wellspring of religion.
With this understanding, religious experiencing and schizophrenia are both
much less mysterious, much more comprehensible and straightforward, and
cogently summarizable.






God exists. ‘God’ refers to [that which controls us], that which is secretly
revealed to have been controlling us this whole time — the term refers to the
higher level of control — the uncontrollable transcendent (higher-level)
controller with respect to our personal control level.

As a control agent, I am a kingly sovereign controller of a certain realm; I
have a certain kind of control over a certain restricted personal realm. I,
as the controller of that realm (controller over that realm), do not have an
ultimate kind of control; instead, I (defined as the personal controller over
that little personal realm) am subject to (I am a puppet controlled by) the
higher level of control. The lower control agent cannot control the
higher-level control agent.

The tricky semantic problem is that the term ‘I’ could be defined to refer to
the lower, personal control level (or control realm), so that ‘I’ refers to a
small, localized locus of control, or the term ‘I’ could be defined to refer
to the transcendent level (or realm) of control.

The whole important point is that there are two separate levels of control:
the lower level, which we are accustomed to governing at, which we are
accustomed to being the governor of; and the higher level of control and
controllership, which our familiar sense of governing-power or control-power
does *not* have control over. To discover God is to discover that one’s
familiar realm of controllership is not absolutely sovereign, but is merely
secondary, a puppet level of control.

To discover that God exists is to discover that one (as a familiar locus of
control) is helplessly controlled by some invisible,
uncontrollable-by-the-lower, higher-order controller. Is that higher-order
controller *personal* and compassionate and well-meaning, life-sustaining, or
is it a heartless, senseless, blind machine circuit, a terrible heartless
random machine-monster?

To survive in the face of this question, we must be given, out of nowhere,
faith: faith that after being smashed down and rendered into a helpless puppet
secretly controlled by an alien overpowering mysterious force, we may be
picket back up again out of paralysis, helplessness, and control-death
(control-seizure). That faith that the mysterious higher-order controller
lifts us back up on our feet after having shown the servitude of our
personal-level control power, has been metaphorized as “faith that Jesus has
been risen after death”.

To have faith in Jesus being risen from the dead, really means having faith
that the higher-level control power picks us up again and sets us on our feet
again as local personal locus-of-control agents after smashing down our power
and revealing the nullity of our power.

After terrifyingly taking the scepter of sovereign power out of our hands
during ego death control-seizure, faith is the magical (transcendent,
trans-rational) giving of *rationally unjustified* confidence, transcendent
miraculous returning of the scepter of personal control power (virtual, as-if
power) back to the local personal controller (the conventional individual
personal ‘I’ agent)..

I can redefine ‘I’ to mean the higher level of controllership that secretly
stands over the familiar localized realm of control agency; I can redefine the
term ‘I’ to refer to God, but that does not change the basic relationship
between separate lower and higher levels of control. The lower remains a mere
puppet king subject to the mysterious invisible higher level of control.

If I am God, the terrible question remains, am I a good God; is God aware and
compassionate and life-preserving, preserving my well-being (that is, in
conventional terms, is God “personal”)? Or is God — meaning simply the
higher hidden level of control — merely a blind, non-conscious, random,
unresponsive, uncompassionate machine, so that I — whether defined as a lower
local control agent *or* the higher hidden controller — am frozen into a
terrible nightmarish prison of arbitrary chaos, where God is revealed to be a
blind and heartless chaos-monster? To survive this, faith must come into the
person’s mind from out of nowhere — rational thinking cannot justify this
necessary vital *confidence* that God (the secret invisible higher controller)
is good and preserves our personal well-being.

That terrible problem remains even when, perhaps especially when, the mind
redefines ‘I’ to mean the higher-level control-locus (God). Even if I am God,
the horrific problem still remains: how can I trust, with urgently needed
confidence, that I (God) am good, compassionate, so as to preserve and sustain
my personal individual well-being?

When I consider myself to be God, does that mean that my personal individual
controller-self is violently destroyed and annihilated like the Jesus figure
torn and nailed to the cross as the final ending? Or is there more, after the
lower personal-agency control-seizure disproves the ultimacy of individual
personal power? Does the sacrificed self spell the tragic end of the story,
or is there a new life after the psychotic control-seizure disproof of
personal power?

If rational thinking is helplessly limited, how can we create and produce
confidence that fate has given us a good future, or that I as higher
controller (God) preserve the well-being and practical sustainability of my
usual individual personal life and livelihood? We cannot rationally create
and produce such a non-rational faith and hope in the goodness and compassion
and well-being-preserving nature of the invisible mysterious alien higher
controller (God).

I may identify with the higher controller (God), yet I as a localized
lower-level personal agent remain ignorant of God’s goodness and remain
ignorant of whether the higher controller (God) is going to preserve the
well-being of the local, conventional, personal me. I can become aware I’m
God, but I remain ignorant of whether God preserves the life and well-being of
the localized, personal me.

This theorizing is actually frighteningly concrete and urgent to the
mysticized mind, the mind during the advanced loose-cognition state: the
lower-level control agent discovers the experiential insight of its helpless
puppethood with respect to the hidden higher level of control.

Will the higher level of control, which is not even known to be aware or
personal or preserving of the lower person’s well-being, move to destroy and
ruin one’s life by forcing chaotic destructive control-thoughts into the
person’s mind? That is the question that produces control-seizure, terrified
trembling, the storm at sea that brings about trans-rational prayer as the
only possible hope, a hope beyond hope. This shows exactly how theology
derives from peak mystic-state experiencing (advanced loose cognition coupled
with controllership theorizing).

The mysticized mind’s strange sense of things being charged with transcendent
meaningfulness, the feeling that special meaning-messages are packed and
concentrated into candy wrappers and apparently features of daily life, is our
built-in capacity for pattern recognition — not just any pattern recognition,
but the ultimate pattern recognition, which is the ability of the mind to
piece together the ultimate puzzle: the relation between lower and higher
control levels, which is the central problem of religion, ego death, and ego
transcendence.

Transcendent knowledge is thereby born and reconstructed in the individual
mind, through this transcendent pattern recognition and attractive foreboding
sense of charged
Group: egodeath Message: 3547 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 17/10/2004
Subject: Re: Christianity not about phenomena in nature
Suns of God: Krishna, Buddha and Christ Unveiled
Acharya S
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/1931882312
Sep. 2004
Proposes that many ancient saviour deities or god’s sons are personifications
of the astronomical sun, which is the ultimate concern of the myths and
rites/feasts.

J. Z. Smith’s book Drudgery Divine has a short good passage and citation
arguing that nature themes were the *means* to express mystic points, they
were not the end meaning in themselves. The seasons, fertility, the sun are
not the point; they are merely the metaphor.

Actually, ultimately, the sun is venerated because of the bright light
experience in the advanced mystic altered state of cognition. This has been
metaphorized as the timeless eternal flames beyond the sphere of the
determinism-controlled fixed stars — the supernal flames outside the limits
of the mundane cosmos.

Article:
Mithras and the Hypercosmic Sun
David Ulansey
http://www.well.com/user/davidu/hypercosmic.html
Group: egodeath Message: 3548 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 17/10/2004
Subject: Demanding commitment to precision in language
Some people provide evidence and demonstration that they actually have read
the egodeath site, from their first lines onward. The theory isn’t actually
difficult, so it’s not uncommon for individuals to fully understand my
theoretical model.

Not that I demand people agree with anything, but rather, when people presume
to discuss my writings, it’s best if they actually know what my writings say.
Often people proclaim upon the theory without having read it; they project pop
notions onto it, importing their own confusions and projecting that onto
(reading it into) what I have wrote, so that they praise me for things I never
said, or criticize me for things I never said.

A glossary remains a main leverage point. I even think Alan Watts’ weak point
was semantic crudeness or unsophistication, falling into vague and weak poetic
usage unnecessarily, instead of utilizing clear and direct language to its
full capacity and capability.

His too-ready falling back on poetic sloppiness and unskilled, non-masterful
overloading of terms implied that language had less capability for precision
than it really does. He also censored himself — if I may guess about his
motives — such as relegating no-free-will to a few footnotes scattered across
his books, when I suddenly figured out how to make sense of his book The Way
of Zen by the key idea of no-free-will, my main feeling was “Why in the hell
didn’t you simply, clearly, and explicitly say so, that there’s no free will?”

At that moment I became particularly displeased with Watts’ sloppy and
unworthy usage of language, his too-ready reversion to poetic vague slop,
which is the opposite of the Hellenistic and mythic mastery of
double-entendre. He doesn’t grasp the tragic-comic joke of skillful,
masterful double-meaning in myth.

I do think loops, circles, spinning, spirals, and feedback-buildup are
important in mystic realization, and have not fully investigated how this is
so.
Group: egodeath Message: 3549 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 17/10/2004
Subject: Re: Motivations for forming Xn orthodoxy
Most writings on the subject of Christian origins are a lot of fantasy,
cartoonish nonsense, and implausible, unrealistic ultra-distortion of the
situation, completely misreading the situation and motivations and even the
nature of religion of the time, with no feel for the cultural climate and
situation of the time. We need more scenario-brainstorming with quite a
different set of assumptions about context, players, and motivations.

Constantine’s goal was stable political control, and the method was to enforce
aspects of uniformity. Christianity combined all-inclusive syncretism with
Jewish-like exclusivism. It effectively co-opted Jewish-type anti-emperor
rebellion. It was possible to form a type of Christianity that combined this
syncretism with exclusivism, producing uniformity across the broad populace,
thereby supporting increased top-down political and sociopolitical control and
stability.

These are goal-driven people; to understand their actions and writings, we
must understand the real goals motivating them. They were motivated by
practical political strategy, not idle theological musings. People battled in
the street in the name of idle and nebulous theological musings, a veneer over
actual sociopolitical power struggles. It was not the case that people just
cared so much and so fondly about abstract theology that they’d kill and
fight; the abstract theology was an excuse to kill and fight, killing and
fighting that was actually driven by sociopolitical struggles.

There was abundant intense mystical religious experiencing available to
everyone on tap, but this genuine religious experiencing was not the motivator
behind the theologically styled street violence.

This genuine primary religious experiencing was instead, just one more theme
to get caught up into the street violence and utilized to justify that
violence, which included competing bishops fighting over dioceses in order to
capture their financially valuable property and income from mandatory
tithing — a turf war over an up-and-coming profitable and power-promising
franchise opportunity.

Piety was not the motivator, but merely the abused club to threaten and coopt
others with.

See Michael Conley’s website and Joseph McCabe’s book’s article How the Church
“Triumphed”.


There is so much cartoonish grotesque misrepresentation of the historical
realities. Everyone talks so casually and confidently about Constantine’s
“cross”, falsely implying that it was a tau cross, when it was actually the
non-Christian and pre-Christian Chi Rho X cross. Similarly, for a later
example, everyone talks so casually and confidently about Luther “nailing his
theses to the church door”, when the reality was a matter of him essentially
push-pinning just another debate proposal to the routinely used
debate-proposal bulletin board.

Such unrealistic, grotesque distortions have vanishingly little to do with the
actual spirit and dynamics motivating the actual actions of the players, and
serve to obscure rather than clarify what the situation was, and what actually
happened and why, toward what strategic goals.
Group: egodeath Message: 3550 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 17/10/2004
Subject: Eso. Rock lyrics are about drug experiences/insights, not drugs
Esoteric Classic Rock lyrics are about drug experiences/insights, not
centrally about the drugs themselves.

The lyrics in the 1976 Rush album 2112 are intended to refer primarily to
experiences, insights, and phenomena that are experienced in the intense
mystic state of consciousness, which is understood rightly by the lyricist as
being most effectively induced by drugs. It is somewhat justifiable to refer
to these intense mystic-state experiences as “drugs” only as a gross
misleading shorthand.

The emphasis is on the experiences, or experiential insights, rather than on
the drugs which are the most ergonomic trigger for the experiences. For
example, the opening statement “the meek shall inherit the earth” and the
closing statement “we have assumed control” both tie into the theme of the
fearsome experience of no-free-will — the deep meaning in these lines, the
deep referent, really is not drugs, but the experience accessed through
drugs — or, through the intense mystic state, which is triggered most
effectively by drugs.

The lyrics are not about drugs, nor about the mystic state itself which is
caused by drugs, but one level further: the experiential insights which are a
result of the intense mystic state which is a result of drugs. The lyrics are
about a realm that is two layers removed from drugs. “Use the key, unlock the
door, see what your fate might have in store” expresses this chain well: drugs
are the initial key, to unlock the door, which leads to a realm in which the
omnipotence of fate is intensely experienced. This chain of concerns can be
clearly drawn as:

key – drugs
door – mystic state
fate – experiential insight regarding no-free-will

Thus the lyric
Use the key, unlock the door, see what your fate might have in store
can be spelled out explicitly as
Use visionary drugs, access the intense mystic altered state, experience
no-free-will/no-separate-self.
and mapped to that perennial mystic pattern or trajectory.

Passage to Bangkok is a throwaway song but it does help establish a
drug-compatible interpretive context for the Western esoteric experiential
mysticism such as in the songs Twilight Zone and Lessons.
Group: egodeath Message: 3551 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 17/10/2004
Subject: Drugs the most sound, sober, plausible, simple expl. of Xn origins
It is possible to have mystic experiences without drugs but possibility is a
matter of degree and ergonomics. It is more rare, fleeting, mild, and
difficult to have mystic experiences without drugs. The easiest explanation
for widespread experience of the Holy Spirit is drugs, particularly when
drug-supporting themes are present in abundance, such as receiving salvation
and the spirit through eating and drinking of real food and drink which is
Christ’s flesh and blood.

If the Eucharistic meal is drugs, that is a coherent explanation of the
relation between eating the Eucharistic meal and experiencing salvation
through the holy spirit. If the holy spirit is mainly had through poetry or
through fasting that’s not used to potentiate visionary plants, this leaves
the Eucharistic meal dangling and explanatorily unconnected to receiving the
holy spirit.

Drugs provide a better, stronger, clearer explanation than drug-free dancing
and poetry as a routine trigger for the intense mystic altered state, because
drugs better incorporate and integrate with highly drug-compatible themes such
as the Eucharist. Consider ergonomics and statistical frequency of efficacy
of various methods of inducing a compellingly intense altered state. Consider
that drugs reliably have a strong tendency to normally induce religious
experiencing, repeatably and provably during any era including the mystically
near-illiterate modern era.

The origin of the other techniques is drugs; those techniques such as dancing
were originated as methods of augmenting and potentiating what was by far the
main method of inducing the intense mystic state, visionary plants. Fasting
is positioned before religious feasting because fasting potentiates drugs and
the religious meal is visionary plants.

Repeated baptism is required because baptism refers to the visionary
distortion induced by visionary plants, and multiple plant sessions are
required in order to experience a system-wide change of mental worldmodel.

Non-drug techniques “can” work — “can” is a vague, open-ended word, like
sheer and mere possibility, sometimes used to hide problems of degree of
likelihood and plausibility, as though “can” means 50%-100% possible. But
non-drug techniques cannot work anywhere near as ergonomically, efficiently,
reliably, and statistically successfully as drug-based techniques, which is
why the predominant motifs in Hellenistic-era religion so centrally include
and emphasize sacred eating and drinking of sacred food and drink.

The question is not only whether psychedelic chemicals were *necessary* or
other methods were *possible*, but rather, the question is, what methods were
in fact used, and what does the evidence suggest more strongly versus less
strongly? Is there more evidence, more plausibility, that the intense mystic
altered state was induced through drugs alone, through drugs augmented with
other techniques, or through non-drug techniques alone?

The evidence best supports that visionary plants were used as the main
technique and were augmented with other, auxiliary techniques such as fasting
and sensory deprivation.
Group: egodeath Message: 3552 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 17/10/2004
Subject: Re: Motivations for forming Xn orthodoxy
The Jesus figure came soon after the divinized Caesar figure. Scholars have
drawn the dots but balked at connecting them: Jesus was invented as a rebuttal
revision of the divinized Caesar figure. Creativity in literature, which is
to say mystic literature, was typically expressed through creative
modifications or twists of existing stories and motifs. Jesus had to be held
as fleshly to compete against Caesar, and there was a Jewish tradition of
pseudo historical-stylization of their mystic motifs.

The Old Testament is recognizable and most naturally readable as
historical-styled mystic-state metaphor, if it is read without modern
filtering and with a mystic-state theory of mythic metaphor, rather than the
modern dreaming-and-waking state, Jungian and Campbellian theories of what
myth is about and what myth is essentially concerned with.

A third incentive for historicizing the Jesus figure was to create an
artificial scarcity and concentration of authority like an orb that could be
held by one pope at a time and passed to the next, forming a top-down
power/control hierarchy, as opposed to the pre-Constantine, practically
egalitarian house-church Christianity — Eucharistic meal gatherings with
prayer and wine just like reclining at table with prayer and rounds of mixed
wine at symposium drinking parties.

Pre-Constantinian Christianity was primarily egalitarian. These early
Christians, which we can call ‘gnostics’ per Freke and Gandy’s usage, or
experiential-esoteric, used metaphor-based meaning-games relying on and
deliberately playing with quasi-elitist or deliberately misleading use of
elitist-sounding themes such as “only we are the predestined and god-chosen
‘race’ of the saved”.

Constantine’s ilk held Jesus to have existed for a limited time in a limited
place, but holding all authority, so that they could postulate that Jesus
passed his orb of authority on to one and only one person and it ended up
passed onto the topmost clergy — as opposed to religious authority being
available to all Christians or to all the gnostic, mystically
chosen/predestined group.
Group: egodeath Message: 3553 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 17/10/2004
Subject: History of interrelating sociopolitical and mystic-state experienti
Michael Conley provides distinctive, essential insights about the political
strategizing aspects about Christian origins in his articles:
http://www.thecosmiccontext.de/christianity.html

Conley does not provide the entire integrated picture including a grasp of
mystic-state metaphor. He grasps what was more crucial and distinctive than
mystic-state experiential metaphor for enabling the rise-to-power of
Christianity. Top-down socio-political strategizing, almost in opposition to
the mystic religious/spiritual dimension of early Christianity, was most
crucial for enabling the rulers to co-opt Christianity and change it from a
rebuttal to the world’s government into a tool to support the world’s
government.

Conley does not understand the meaning of early Christian mythemes, but he
does contribute the most crucial missing understanding of the socio-political
strategizing that, unlike the mystic meaning and religious-spiritual aspect,
lay behind the rise-to-power of Christianity. He doesn’t understand what
early Christianity meant, but he does understand most of the essence of how it
rose to power.

Christianity was first a cooptation of Caesar cult and top-down government,
then was changed by Constantine into a counter-cooptation of that grassroots
anti-Caesar or anti-government resistance movement — Conley partially
perceives this trajectory of change, though his comprehension of
pre-Constantine political themes in Christianity is limited by his lack of
grasping the mystic-state metaphor, spiritual-religious dimension per se.

There was an especially close interpenetration of the two distinct aspects in
pre-Constantine Christianity, which was a meshing of counter-government themes
and mystic-state metaphor. Early Christianity freely drew from evolving
Jewish political-styled and historical-styled mysticism as well as drawing
from evolving Hellenistic/pagan trajectories.

Christianity was multiple prior to its forced normalization by Constantine,
but the most essential themes to trace and study in early Christianities are
the confluence and weaving together of socio-political government themes and
mystic-state experiential insights. Both aspects of early Christianity —
socio-political government themes and mystic-state religious-experiencing
themes — were well-preserved in the canon, and we need to recognize both of
these more than Freke and Gandy (mystic-state only) or Michael Conley and
Richard Horsley (socio-political only) have done.

Some varieties of Christianity before Constantine were predominantly
mystic-state centered, with little concern for expressing and utilizing
counter-government or alternative-government themes, but that fades away into
generic Hellenistic esotericism/mysticism and is thus not specifically
Christianity but is merely an input to Christianity. To trace anything worth
considering Christianity, to stay relevant to a study of early Christianity,
we have to hang onto both, interpenetrating themes while travelling backwards
through time past Constantine.

While studying each variety of pre-Constantine Christianity, we have to query
each variety for its use of socio-political themes and for its incorporation
of mystic-state religious-experiential themes, or else we’re not actually
studying the origins of Christianity, but instead are fading into studying the
separate political and mystic-state contexts of Christianity.

The surest way to trace Christian origins is to trace the interpenetration of
both of these thematic realms and concerns — socio-political and mystic-state
experiential; to define what it is we are attempting to trace the origins of
(“Christianity”) we need to define Christianity as first of all, the
combination of political and mystic themes, which was not the first time these
themes were combined (it’s normal to have both), but was the most explicit
combination of these two themes.

Never before had mystic-state experiencing been expressed in such an
elaborated alternative-government, political-resistance thematic framework
before or since Christianity around 250.

The Roman combination of political and mystic-state themes begat the
opposition in the early Christian combinations of political and mystic-state
themes, and that rebuttal or grassroots co-optation was then counter-co-opted
by the state-religious system that it was designed to resist and provide an
alternative to, just as 1960s counterculture rebellion was co-opted and
commoditized by the establishment.

Anti-establishment politicized mystic religion was taken over by the
establishment: what better way to deal with rebellion and alternative culture
than by co-opting, commandeering, taking it over, strategically incorporating
themes of resistance and the desire for an alternative, right into the
top-down establishment system of government.

Pre-Christianity Hellenistic-era government had its integration with
mystery-religion mystic-state concerns, and so did pre-Constantine and
post-Constantine Christianity: if we are to study Christianity, we need to
explicitly and concertedly study both aspects — socio-political and
mystic-state concerns — and their trajectory and how the two were integrated
in pre-Christian, early, and post-Constantine Christianity.

More than the other Hellenistic-era mystery-religions, Christianity was
explicitly and emphatically political-styled, even more so than Ruler Cult
which it was a creative modification and co-optation of.

o Jewish religion was not only sociopolitical; it was heavily mystic-state
experiential.

o Pre-Constantine Christianity was religious/mystical, but it was also
essentially socio-political, if we are tracing the origins of something
rightly labelled as ‘Christianity’ in any meaningful and relevant sense.

o Post-Constantine Christianity was politicized, but remained significantly
religious/mystical — the most viable strategy was not to attempt to eliminate
mystic-state religious experiencing, but to corral and secure control of it in
support of the top-down rulership system.

o Roman government was political, but it was also religious/mystical as is
admitted through the too-few, deliberately not-integrated peeks the modern
scholars permit at Ruler Cult as precursor to Christianity.

Jewish, pagan, and Christian systems, all through the Hellenistic era, were
typically combinations of, first of all, political and mystic-experiential
concerns and themes. Political themes are widespread and clearly present in
Hellenistic-era myth, if you look for them, and mystic-state experiential
themes are also widespread and clearly present in Hellenistic-era political
expressions, if you look for them.

Christianity was by no means the first combination of sociopolitical and
mystic-state experiential themes, but it was the most vital combination of
them, and if we are ever to claim to comprehend and trace the origins of
something rightly called ‘Christianity’, we must put the first emphasis on
recognizing and systematically tracing these two themes and studying the
history of how these two areas of concern were interrelated in various ways in
the Jewish systems, pagan systems, and Christian systems throughout the
Hellenistic era.
Group: egodeath Message: 3554 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 17/10/2004
Subject: Astral ascent mysticism influential in Hellenistic religions
Jesus was not simply equated with the sun; more to the point, both Mithraism
and Christianity incorporated astral ascent mysticism, which included
Neoplatonist-type ascent-to-the-sunlight themes as well. The surest reference
point is astral ascent mysticism, with Neoplatonism, Mithraism, Sol Invictus,
Ruler Cult, and Christianity all incorporating and drawing upon themes from
astral ascent mysticism.

The Jewish religions of the era sometimes incorporated astral ascent mysticism
themes as well, such as the zodiac and the cosmic sphere of the fixed stars,
and the idea of a divine powerful entity transcendently moving and thus
surpassing that sphere. As Hellenistic mystery religion evolved through 100
BCE-400 CE, astral ascent mysticism became, especially during the rise of
Roman Mithraism, the hottest, most influential source of mystic/religious
themes.

Mithraism was interconnected with Roman government. Per J. Z. Smith in
Drudgery Divine, each variety of religion was changing and evolving throughout
the Hellenistic era, not static.

The pagan system included evolving systems of religious and political
expression, including incorporating astrological mysticism or astrotheology in
both political expression and in religious expression. Astrotheology was also
present in changing ways during the evolution of Jewish systems and Christian
systems during the Hellenistic era. For example, the sphere of the fixed
stars is penetrated at Jesus’ baptism and ascension, and Jesus in Revelation
is the new star that destroys or transcends the cosmic-determinism sphere of
the fixed stars.

Against Ulansey, religion such as Mithraism was not stimulated by the
discovery of the precession of the equinoxes; rather, merely, the precession
of the equinoxes was found to be a clever expression of the idea of
transcending the power of cosmic determinism, fate, or heimarmene; in astral
ascent mysticism, the idea of penetrating the sphere of fixed stars —
representing the harsh omnipotent rule of cosmic determinism — is well
expressed by the idea of spiritual forces so powerful and transcendent as to
be able to move the sphere of fixed stars from its fixed status.

People weren’t so much blown away by the precession that they were inspired to
make a religion out of it; more like the other way around: people as they
always had, were blown away by religious initiation including the grappling to
transcend the power of cosmic determinism.

They found in precession, as an addition to astral ascent mysticism, a
metaphor to tangibly and elegantly express, particularly within the astral
ascent mystic/cosmological system, the idea of transcending the sphere of the
fixed stars, so both in Mithraism and in Christianity we find the idea of
penetrating outside the sphere of fixed stars (like exiting the cave/womb)
joined with the idea of the representative godman/ruler moving the sphere of
fixed stars.

This is standard elementary astral ascent mysticism — this is simply the
standard pre-Enlightenment cosmology itself — themes of which were woven into
Mithraism and Christianity. Did Christianity co-opt these themes from
Mithraism or from the cult of Sol Invictus? It may have been, in line with J.
Z. Smith, more a matter of a competitive race between evolving and changing
varieties of Jewish, Christian, and pagan systems.

The details do need study, but also the general dynamic needs to be
identified, that various astrotheology — or better, astral ascent
mysticism — themes were incorporated into various religions and political
systems during the Hellenistic era. Against Mithraism, Ruler Cult, and the
other state-friendly mystery cults, there came to stand Christianity, which,
like the Jews were held to do, rejected the Roman religious-political systems
even while including the full range of mystic-state experiential insights and
themes.

The Roman official system before Constantine had its Sol Invictus cult,
Mithras cult, Ruler Cult, and evolving State-friendly mystery cults, but
against that, using an evolving combination of political and mystic and
astral-ascent themes, stood systems of Christianity which, to the extent they
aligned with socio-politically exclusivist types of Jewish religion, also were
set against the Roman system in a competitive rebuttal form.

Jewish-like hardline exclusivism against the Roman system, minus the
too-Jewish aspects, was apparently an effective popular theme both for the
grassroots resisters and for the top-down strategists who took over the
nascent Christian alternative to the Roman system.
Group: egodeath Message: 3555 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 17/10/2004
Subject: King fastened cross aptly repres. no-free-will and no-sep.-self
No-separate-self is the most commonplace idea that predominates in American
stripped-down Buddhism — one might say Protestantized Buddhism, particularly
in the sense of the early Protestants seeking to destroy Catholic art and
symbols, even the symbol of the cross on American churches up to around 1875.
Because symbols were abused by the state/church system, such a Protestant-type
strategy attempts to emancipate from politically abused religion by stamping
out symbols.

No-separate-self has become all-dominant in today’s American Buddhist
conception of mysticism. No-separate-self is one of the main standard
components of mystic experiencing and schizophrenia according to mainstream
researchers. This is described as the feeling of being conjoined in oneness
with people and with the universe. “There is no separate self” is the main
leading popular, utterly common idea in the American conception of Buddhist
mystic insight.

Mystic experiential insights has been reduced to only the no-separate-self
insight, losing all sight of the crucial idea and experience of no-free-will;
thus the main *missing* insight in today’s popular published conception of
mystic insight is the insight into no-free-will, in which topic I also include
*transcendence of* no-free-will. We are thoroughly inundated and saturated
with the overfamiliar assertion and platitude that there is no separate self,
that the separate ego is unreal, but that emphasis has shut out any thought
and insight regarding no-free-will.

The Cross elegantly represents both of these main insights, so is stronger
than the American post-1960s conception of Buddhism which only contributes the
no-separate-self insight. People value the idea and experience of merging
into the cosmos, but inherently paired with that experience is the experience
of no-free-will, which is the part people in post-1960s mainstream American
mysticism don’t anticipate and have not integrated.

The cross has traditionally been considered as a tree paired with the tree in
the garden of Eden.
http://www.egodeath.com/CrossMetaphor.htm — Fastening to the Spacetime
Block — lists varieties of fastening the body to the physical realm in
Hellenistic-era myth-religion.

Fastening the representative deity to a tree or rock or throne, or encasing
the deity, or hanging them from a tree, are expressions of *experience*. Myth
is, first of all, metaphorical descriptive tangible expressions and reports of
intense mystic-state experiences. The king fastened to the tree-like cross
represents the mystic-state experience no-free-will.

The king, considered as governing steersman, is helplessly fastened to the
frozen timeless spacetime block. This remains the case whether considering
the cross as a pair of beams or as a tree. Fastening to a tree, being encased
in wood, or becoming a tree, were common mythemes because the tree is stuck
with roots in the material realm, and has high branches up in the air above
our normal consciousness — the mystic experience is one of being up high at
the same time as being stuck helplessly in the material spacetime block.

The *fastening to the physical* aptly expresses and represents the
no-separate-self aspect of the intense mystic-state experiential insight.

The fastening of the *helpless king* aptly expresses and represents the
no-free-will aspect of the intense mystic-state experiential insight.
Group: egodeath Message: 3556 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 18/10/2004
Subject: 1960s Psychedelic compilation CDs, picking lyrics
I created these lists of 60s Psychedelic compilation CDs recently. I hope to
upload some interesting lyrics from a few of the most outstanding songs I’ve
come across. I hope to come up with a list of my picks for the best of the
best in terms of both psychedelic-styled musical technique and mystic-state
lyrics.

A hard decision is whether to cover the excellent but obvious and overfamiliar
mainstream songs such as Journey to the Center of the Mind, Too Much to Dream
Last Night, or Legend of a Mind. I favor hard-psych studio effects typifying
1967 psychedelic, showcased well in the 1985 albums by Dukes of Stratosphear
(XTC).

Considering posting:
Devil Rides Out
You Make Me High — clearest example of pop-love themes utilized really as
metaphor for intense mystic-state experiences
99th Floor (1975 song ’67-styled except with solid-state deep phasing giving
away the non-period sound)

Posted already:
Mother Nature
Brink of Death
Cathy, Come Home
Train to Disaster
http://www.egodeath.com/MysticStateAllusionsPsychedelicLyrics.htm
The Society: “High & Mighty”
Kenny & The Kasuals: “Journey to Tyme”
Warm Sounds: “Night Is a’ Comin'” – Selfhood fading fast
Dennis Dahlquist/Del-Vetts: “Last Time Around”

Hard-psych studio effects:
Backwards instruments
Runaway echo feedback
Reverb achieved via Echoplex
Farfisa Compact Combo organ followed by Hammond B3 era
Fuzz guitar distortion
Exotic instrumentation
Tape flanging/phasing
Tremolo
Backwards echo fade-in
Sped-up/slowed-down effects
Guitar direct-inject into tube-preamp mixer board channel
12-string electric guitar
Harmony singing
Creative, unpredictable songwriting and production
Patching clips and sounds into the mix

List of lists:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/cm/member-fil/-/A1YFCQT60M4XAJ?start-at=5
1
Psychedelic compilations – series and box sets
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/CA6CKRPPIHO3
Psychedelic compilations – non-series
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/8SHAN3HK2O0L
Psychedelic Pstones psych comp series
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/NOP7XDF1IKPH
Green Crystal Ties – Psych Compil. Series
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/32QQNVBC2MMWL
Love, Peace & Poetry – Psych compil. series
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/38EL03DZTG54L
Nuggets compilation series and box sets
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/34UM7C9DOGSAQ
Psychedelic States – Psych compilation series
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/PL6HG0EEAPBX
Fuzz, Flaykes, & Shakes – Psych. compil. series
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/15ALZURRKHV8R
Circus Days – Psych. compil. series
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Group: egodeath Message: 3557 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 18/10/2004
Subject: Why wisdom seekers must understand mythic metaphor in existing reli
Steve wrote (edited):
>>Is all this effort to rightly understand Christian origins and original
meaning and the sordid story of how the power-seekers took over and ruined
Christianity really necessary, for explaining how to eliminate ego?

>>Of course much of religion has been fableized through such a process of
deliberate distortion, abuse, and vulgar strategic literalization for base
ends. To build up religious insight into tangible worth as something that
appears more to matter, the myth-religion stories must have verve and
excitement and must be made to assume mythological proportions. Ancients were
much like people today, naturally wanting to distort the truth to gain power
and polity support.

>>Almost all legitimate world-transformative and life-transformative
ideologies have been abused and prostituted in this vulgar way: Christianity,
Islam, the Levant, and Hindu caste systems all have been misused to condone
slavery, imprisonment, torture, and death. Ideas are like dangerous bombs;
they can mutate and spread with virulence among those hungry for experience
and purpose.

>>It was typical that self-serving maniacs have peppered history with a tangle
of a mess that leads any serious seeker for wisdom running in the opposite
direction; it is understandable and justifiable for thinking people to avoid
and shun the official abused ideologies and conceptualizations of religion.

>>Those who study wisdom itself ought to be focusing on discussing not the
history of the misuse of transcendent knowledge for base purposes, but rather,
how freedom from the ego is the answer to beating such dysfunctional misuse of
religion, because losing ego reveals that ego is not needed in the first
place. Losing ego also reveals that death is meaningless. Losing ego
heightens the level of sensitivity to the heart, increasing sensitivity to
other souls, who are seen to glow and who the enlightened and wise person
loves.

>>The lover of wisdom perceives how other souls are bound in chains — when
other people try to argue against the wisdom-centered spiritual person, the
spiritual person doesn’t have any points to defend, and this befuddles the
pseudo-religious person who is confused by the corrupted form and misused
travesty of religion.

>>The spiritually wise person can care for the pseudo-religious person even
though the pseudo-religious person doesn’t understand why, but most
pseudo-religious people want to care for other souls too, and want the
spiritually wise person to help give them that caring for souls. The
spiritually wise person knows that in the end, the peace, happiness and love
for all creatures is apodictically, necessarily, demonstrably,
incontrovertibly certain and true.

>>The spiritually wise person knows that there is no need to go out and fight
and die for a version of religion that has been corrupted and reduced to a
literalist metaphor such as literalized exclusivist Christianity or
literalized exclusivist Islam. So the spiritually wise person doesn’t need to
focus on comprehending and explaining the way in which particular religions
have been derailed and corrupted from wisdom expression systems into vulgar
exclusivist literalism.

>>It is acceptable to study how Christianity was derailed and corrupted from a
wisdom expression system into vulgar exclusivist literalism, but that story is
a sad and tragic story — let’s focus more on happier stories, such as direct
spiritual wisdom and its great positive potential, and focus on the benefits
of freedom from the ego.

>>The revelations from the negative study of how Christianity was ruined by
Constantine and the top-down power mongers is like getting rid of a receptor
on a cell wall that a virus can hook onto to infect you. Yes, those viruses
and receptors are out there and need to be defended against by revealing the
truth about the sordid story of how the Christian wisdom expression was ruined
by Constantine and other authoritarian power-seekers. But we must focus more
on the positive work of explaining how to eliminate ego.


Given the context and inescapable reality of today’s world, it is impossible
and hopeless to attempt to present a system of ego transcendence without also
explaining the original meaning of Christianity in the house-church era and
explain how Christianity was ruined and corrupted historically. If the modern
Western world fails to understand the true meaning behind Christianity and how
that meaning fell, it will fail to grasp and hold onto transcendent knowledge.

It is practically impossible in the modern Western world to have transcendent
knowledge without comprehending the meaning of the Christian symbol-system,
comprehending how transcendent knowledge is expressed in the meaning system;
how the two map together. To have an adequate comprehension of transcendent
knowledge in today’s world, the thinker must recognize how transcendent
knowledge maps to and is expressed in various symbol-systems, various
myth-religion systems.

You can’t adequately have transcendent knowledge without understanding and
recognizing the general symbolic language of how transcendent knowledge is
expressed in various myth-religion systems such as magic, alchemy, astrology,
Christianity, and Buddhism — particularly with a focus on how Christianity is
an expression of transcendent knowledge. It is impractical, idealistic, and
futile to think that we can ignore Christianity and fabricate a viable and
relevant system of transcendent knowledge.

Dealing with and resolving Christianity is the only possible way to succeed at
securing a viable system of understanding transcendent knowledge.
Understanding how Christianity expresses transcendent knowledge, and
afterwards the other symbolic myth-religion systematizations, is essential for
having a full and adequate grasp of transcendent knowledge.

Transcendent knowledge, pragmatically today, strongly requires comprehension
of how transcendent knowledge is expressed in Christianity first and foremost
(the other symbol systems follow trivially easily after that), and
comprehension of how transcendent knowledge is expressed in Christianity
practically demands that everyone understand the sordid story of how the
profound truth in Christianity has been ruined, corrupted, and abused into a
debased travesty, resulting in exclusivist literalist religion.

It is an unavoidable practical necessity: to understand transcendent knowledge
we must recognize transcendent knowledge in Christianity, and to comprehend
transcendent knowledge in Christianity, we must understand how Christianity
has been corrupted from transcendent knowledge to exclusivist literalism and
reduced to socio-political utility and debased into a mere conduct-of-life,
non-religious ethical system.

Converting the world from literalist religion to actual religion cannot happen
without a thorough, maximum, adequate, full, detailed, and complete
explanation of how we went from actual religion to debased pseudo-religion in
the first place. Why exactly does understanding transcendent knowledge, for a
modern Westerner, demand and require and necessitate a full understanding of
how transcendent knowledge is encoded in the Christian symbol-system?

Why exactly does understanding how transcendent knowledge is encoded in
Christianity, and securing transcendent knowledge, necessitate understanding
how Christianity was debased from an expression of transcendent knowledge into
vulgar pseudo-religious literalism? These are detailed explanations yet to be
expanded, but it is easy to generally see and imagine how it is folly and
futility for the modern world to attempt to possess transcendent knowledge
without comprehending how Christianity is an expression of that transcendent
knowledge.

It is also easy to generally see and imagine how, for the modern world to
attempt to possess transcendent knowledge, it is a practical necessity to
comprehend how Christianity was corrupted from such an expression into base
exclusivist literalism. All these idealistic people who wish to study
transcendent knowledge and ignore and turn their back on the world of
Christianity have no hope of success at changing the world.

It is certainly hopeless and futile to fantasize that we can change the
religious world, the actual world we have today, by merely offering an
alternative system of transcendent knowledge, without including in that system
a specific module and full study of how transcendent knowledge maps to
Christianity in particular, and to all myth-religion systems in general. That
practically necessary mapping is a highly necessary mapping — you cannot
simply ignore the dragon of literalist Christianity, which is fully
predominant and influential; we have no choice but to confront it and destroy
it.

It is completely hopeless to attempt to just ignore it: literalist
Christianity has far too much influence to be ignored, and far too much value
to provide when converted from an impediment and firmly blocking enemy to a
helper, illustration, and ally. How can people think that they can just
ignore Christianity and it will fade away? They are living in an idealistic,
unrealistic fantasy of wishful thinking, and, there are too many reasons why
it is infinitely better to convert to the truth of Christianity rather than
wishing and trying to simply ignore and delete Christianity.

For many practical reasons, we *have to* show how transcendent knowledge is
mapped to Christianity, and we *have to* explain how Christianity was
corrupted from an expression of transcendent knowledge to debased exclusivist
literalism. Christianity is not just some minor backwoods cult that can be
ignored.

Literalist Christianity is the most influential religion in today’s world, it
is firmly and thoroughly entrenched, it is positioned to prevent and impede
transcendent knowledge, you can ignore it but it won’t ignore you, and the
easiest way to convert the world from pseudo-religion to actual religious
wisdom is to leverage, not to try to ignore, Christianity. To try to ignore
Christianity would be to miss out on the most powerful lever.

Christianity cannot be ignored, but the good news is, it can be leveraged —
and it *must be* leveraged. The only way to convert the world from
pseudo-religion to actual religious wisdom is by first of all, leveraging
Christianity, which means explaining how transcendent knowledge is encoded in
it, and explaining how it was corrupted into literalist pseudo-religion.

A strategy of focusing on transcendent knowledge and ignoring Christianity is
guaranteed to utterly fail, just as running away to Americanized Buddhism is a
failed strategy that is bound to keep failing, and I condemn the post-1960s
Western efforts to look to stripped-down demythologized Buddhism as escapist,
irrelevant, impotent, distorting, even corrupting of Buddhist wisdom itself.
A strategy of leveraging Christianity is essentially guaranteed to succeed.

Roll-your-own Buddhism is a foolish, clueless lie and a sham, it is a failure,
falsely claiming some success and viability: how is telling ourselves lies
about Buddhism going to give us transcendent truth or provide a true
alternative to debased Christianity? People ought to hate sham attempts at
spirituality more than Christianity; here I’m spiritually aligned with Gnosis
magazine.

Running away to exotic or abstract and purified systems of transcendent
knowledge, without dealing with, confronting, and solving the concrete
problems of entrenched religion — Christianity — is just a wishful evasion
and postponement of the necessary, required work of solving the problem rather
than running away from it.

The wish to avoid Christianity is ignorant and foolish because anyone who can
perceive how Christianity certainly and adeptly encodes transcendent knowledge
can see that obviously, leveraging Christianity is a vastly more sound,
useful, realistic, practical strategy than attempting to avoid and ignore
Christianity.

It’s stupid — I have to explain exactly why — to even think for a moment
that we can do an end-run around Christianity, when obviously, Christianity
stands as such a huge ally. It’s as illogical as an unarmed troop, who wants
to kill the enemy, finding an enemy’s cache of guns and then destroying the
cache of guns instead of taking them up. Obviously, the most effective weapon
against debased Christianity is authentic Christianity, not ignoring
Christianity.

Anyone who values transcendent knowledge and comprehends it and intends to
make major religious changes to the world, will recognize their work and their
given labor, and the way to victorious success, as necessarily happening
through *engaging* with the religious world through the world’s existing
religions, by reawakening the authentic version of each religion to battle
against the bogus version of each religion.

To fail to pick up this strategy of harnessing the authentic variety of a
religion against the bogus variety of a religion is to shirk and fail engaging
with the problem at hand, which is that the world is thoroughly taken over by
literalist Christianity.

Perhaps I am more alarmed and serious about the problem of literalist
Christianity than most spiritualists; in this respect I am aligned with the
mood of Acharya S: I take very seriously the extent to which bogus literalist
Christianity has taken over the world; if you think spirituality has any
chance by ignoring Christianity, that’s foolish and you have no idea just how
powerful Christianity is, such that no idealistic fantasy of offering a
positive free-floating new spirituality system, such as Americanized Buddhism,
has any chance of success.

The attempt to put forth a spirituality system while ignoring Christianity,
the attempt to avoid engaging Christianity, is instantly and completely
doomed, and it’s a crazy strategy given the no-brainer obvious potent strategy
of destroying bogus Christianity through revivifying and revealing authentic
Christianity.

The dragon of literalist Christianity is far too powerful and active of an
impediment to permit the real success of transcendent knowledge, and, it is
just crazy, foolish, and ignorant to fail to recognize authentic Christianity
as the most obvious and natural weapon against bogus Christianity.

Only a terrible lack of comprehension of how transcendent knowledge maps to
Christianity would permit anyone to think for even a moment that the smart
thing to do is ignore Christianity and the dynamic of how authentic
Christianity has been debased into bogus Christianity.

Obviously, to anyone who comprehends transcendent knowledge and
metaphorization of it, the only thinkable strategy even worth considering is
to blow the lid open on the true meaning of Christianity, not to let the lid
stay on and thus preserve evil bogus Christianity while attempting to offer a
stripped-down attractive alternative.

Those who attempt to provide authentic religion through a strategy of staying
positive and ignoring Christianity or ignoring bogus Christianity, are part of
the problem: in effect, in practice, they are inadvertently helping to
preserve the evil status quo; Gnosis magazine essentially warns about this
deep, catastrophic strategic mistake. If you fail to repair Christianity, you
are in effect helping to support broken Christianity.

To personally attain gnosis and to improve the world and make gnosis available
to the general populace, we urgently have to repair and fix Christianity; the
last thing we should be doing is ignoring Christianity. A strategy of
ignoring broken Christianity and offering a pure non-symbolic system of
transcendent knowledge, is obviously guaranteed to fail catastrophically and
result in the continuation of ignorance, delusion, and bogus terribly harmful
religion.

It needs to be clear to anyone who comprehends transcendent knowledge and
metaphorization of it, that the only possible strategy for success, the only
strategy that has any merit of pursuing, is the strategy of offering the core
pure non-symbolic system of transcendent knowledge *together with* a full and
complete explanation of how that core system maps to the Christian system,
pitting as an ally authentic Christianity — dug out this terrifically
powerful thing from the pit it’s been hidden in — against the active,
blocking, entrenched, firmly predominant bogus Christianity.

Bogus Christianity is vastly more powerful, entrenched, and an active
impediment to transcendent knowledge than any puny and feeble systematization
of transcendent knowledge has any hope in hell of surviving in the face of;
and, together with that, also, authentic Christianity is the no-brainer
natural superpower, the only possible super-weapon that is fitted exactly to
kill the monster of bogus Christianity. We have to engage the actual enemy
and we have to use the right weapons.

This powerful monster of bogus religion is the main impediment to gnosis being
available to the general populace. Bogus religion is bad because it is
harmful and its ultimate harm is that it impedes the availability of gnosis.

The attempt to offer an attractive positive system of transcendent knowledge
while ignoring Christianity is foolish, ignorant, clueless, and certain to
fail; it has no chance of any success or real influence, and the people who
think it is working are merely deluding themselves and remaining irrelevant
while bogus Christianity, together with bogus spirituality in general, remains
all-powerful.

The goal is primary religious experience, intense mystic-state experiential
insight, metaphysical enlightenment about personal moral control agency. The
effort to form transcendent knowledge without reference to Christianity is an
understandable but misguided attempt to get to core transcendent knowledge,
but fails to realize how practically necessary the outer layer is, of
interfacing/mapping to entrenched religious systems.

The right strategy is to distinctly define *core* transcendent knowledge and
the *mapping* of that core to existing symbolic-systems of myth-religion that
express that knowledge.

Trying to do the core part without the mapping will fail to engage with the
world to change it, and just as bad, failing to attain that mapping amounts to
a failure to comprehend the actual world we have on our hands, failure to
understand transcendent knowledge well enough to usefully perceive how it is
expressed in the actual predominant religions that make up the real actual
world we have had to live in. Only valuing the core can only be done by
failing even to understand the core.

Anyone who understands the core of spiritual wisdom must therefore also
understand how the actual religious systems of the world embody and map to
that core; anyone who claims to have the core without having that mapping
necessarily has a poor and feeble grasp of the core; in practice, one’s grasp
of core transcendent knowledge depends on one’s grasp of metaphorizations of
the core (or, mappings of the core to myth-religious systems, or, how the core
is embodied in existing myth-religion systems).

Anyone who claims that core transcendent knowledge is practical, viable, and
desirable without also mapping core transcendent knowledge to existing
myth-religion merely demonstrates their own failure to grasp core transcendent
knowledge. The effort to seek and value the core without also mastering the
mapping to myth-religion reveals merely ignorance of the core and reveals
irrelevant, impractical, shirking to engage with the real problems of changing
the actual world.

Protestant religion tried to destroy the symbolic myth-religion layer of
Catholic Christianity but only ended up burying and hiding the truth. The
effort to strip away and eliminate myth-religion symbol-systematizing is
motivated by the admirable desire to attain core transcendent knowledge, but
in practice in the real world, you cannot have core transcendent knowledge
without having and valuing the mapping of that core to existing myth-religion
symbol systems.

Anyone who actually has the core transcendent knowledge will be delighted to
study and understand and comprehend, recognize, explorer, and excitedly
explain how that core is expressed, like elatedly discovering the solution to
a meaning-puzzle that converts a dragon into an ally, in various myth-religion
symbol-systems.

Shunning colorful myth-religion symbol-systems merely proves that a person is
pursuing wisdom without yet possessing it — because they lack comprehension
of transcendent knowledge, they loath and are alienated from all myth-religion
symbol systems, so they become wishfully enamored with stripped-down
non-symbolic minimalist religion such as demythologized liberal Christianity
or Americanized pseudo-spiritual Buddhism — they loath mythic metaphor
because it is not the core transcendent knowledge they wish to attain.

But the person who has attained core transcendent knowledge is excited to
explore and explain how the metaphorical myth-religion symbol-systems such as
magic, alchemy, astrology, Christianity, and Islam are actually fascinating
and wonderful encoded, embodied expressions of the core transcendent
knowledge.

And naturally this tremendous discovery of what core transcendent knowledge is
and how it has been mapped into the existing myth-religion systems leads to a
serious interest into the question of how, exactly and historically, those
myth-religion symbol systems came to be debased from authentic expressions of
religious experiential insight to bogus and harmful literalism.

Anyone interested in the core, who understands the core, will be naturally
interested in metaphorizations of the core, whereas today’s would-be
spiritualists shun metaphor in their as-yet-unattained pursuit of the core.
Thus we see the dynamic I wrote about some months ago, that there is a classic
trajectory from debased literalist supernaturalist thinking (low religion) to
awkward stripped-down metaphor-loathing mid-level religion, finally arriving
home to delight now in magical metaphorization of the core experiential
insight.

If metaphor study is not fun for you, you have not yet attained core
transcendent knowledge, and therefore foolishly think that stripped-down,
demythologized core transcendent knowledge can and should go it alone without
pairing up with the strategy of mapping to existing myth-religion
symbol-systems to rightly explain them.

The effort to have a strategy of only putting forth core transcendent
knowledge, without also putting forth a mapping of it to existing
myth-religion symbol-systems, is only half a viable strategy, and is
guaranteed to fail twice over: it will fail to change the world, and it will
fail to even attain the one half it claims to: it will fail to even attain to
the core transcendent knowledge.

In practice, it is impossible to attain core transcendent knowledge without
also attaining a mapping of that core to the existing myth-religion symbol
systems — and also, once you possess a mapping of that core to the existing
myth-religion symbol systems, that and only that is what stands to kill the
hegemony of bogus literalist religion.

This all has always been obvious to me as the only strategy worth even
thinking about, and it is exasperating to have to waste time spelling out the
obvious to so many people around me who simply loath bogus myth-religion, who
loath religion in a crude across-the-board way because they are ignorant of
the existence of profound transcendent meaning in religion and of the relation
between bogus literalist religion and profound mythic-metaphorical religion.

They fail to appreciate systems of myth-religion because they fail to
understand myth-religion. People ought to understand core transcendent
knowledge, including access to intense mystic-state climax of controllership
breakdown and transformation, and they ought to, by necessarily the same
token, interlinked, comprehend and appreciate the cleaver profundity of mythic
metaphor in existing myth-religion systems.

Only then can people be said to understand transcendent knowledge. Anything
short of possessing and valuing both the core and the metaphor-mapping is a
woefully incomplete state, not spiritual enlightenment, and indicates merely
vague wishful thinking about what spiritual knowledge is, and indicates merely
the basic lack of understanding mystic experiential insight and transcendent
knowledge.


— Michael Hoffman
http://www.egodeath.com — simple theory of the ego-death and rebirth
experience. The essence, paradigm, origin, and fountainhead of religion is
the use of visionary plants to routinely trigger the intense mystic altered
state, producing loose cognitive association binding, which then produces an
experience of frozen block-universe determinism with a single, pre-existing,
ever-existing future. The return of the ordinary state of consciousness is
allegorized as a transcendence of Necessity or cosmic determinism. Myth
describes this mystic-state experience. Initiation is classically a series of
some 8 visionary-plant sessions, interspersed with study of perennial
philosophy. Most religion is a distortion, corruption, literalization, and
cooptation of this standard initiation system.
Group: egodeath Message: 3558 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 19/10/2004
Subject: Re: Why wisdom seekers must understand mythic metaphor in existing
Steve wrote (edited):
>>I would like a discussion group that acquaints us as a community of people
who have experienced the egoless state of blissful now — the mystical
gratuitous grace bestowed on us. I want to further explore where I have gone
and what it’s about and be around and talk to others who know about the gift
and realize that everything is going to be OK.

>>I would like to meet other people like myself who had had this life-changing
experience. You don’t meet them every day. If you could that easily, I would
just go to the mall and strike up a conversation with any person and talk
about it. But it’s not likely to occur.


This is a scholarly idea-development and debate forum, as stated in the home
page and charter. That includes theorizing about the effects of ego
suspension and ego transcendence. The emphasis is on ideas rather than
individuals. The unmoderated discussion group supports that, and I expect it
to have such an emphasis.

I am skeptical about the purported benefits of ego transcendence; am testing
the assertions to see whether they hold water or are merely unrealistic
wishful thinking.


>>I don’t want to strip away the original metaphorical reference from any of
these original religions especially the Christian one. I love some of the
wonderful complexity that these metaphors achieve. It is artful and a beauty
to behold.

>>These experiences do differ and some are more intellectual than others. For
some people, the intellectual answers that fell into place are the most
intriguing. For some, righting the wrongs regarding historical distortion and
debasing of the meaning is the best way to apply one’s energies. The
populations of masses were abused for power by distorting the purest of
wonders that mankind can potentially know. The intellectual explanation about
what happened will reach the elite in breaking this tangle apart, but it won’t
reach the common man. The common man doesn’t understand the difference
between a metaphor and metaphysical reality, which is why these distortions
worked as they did throughout Christian history.


The intellectual approach is worthwhile, influential, and crucially necessary.
This approach might be less immediately popular, but stands actually to be
much more influential than merely yet another spiritual community. There are
lots of such communities, with little effect on the status quo regarding the
official history of Christian origins and original meaning.


>>The quest and pursuit of such an aim is courageous, but I don’t want
fighting. Damn these devils yes, But I’ll let you be the Vampire slayer, as a
division of labor. I can help in that fight, but to me it is a game to be
played as all things are.


I don’t write these days about the common basic ideas that everyone knows —
such as what is ego, what are benefits of ego elimination, what does ego
elimination mean. I’ve already written about that.

I’m lately working on the problems of mystic theory and history. I ought to
work on those problems of how Christianity went bad and instead of writing
about the effects of eliminating ego. I defend my recent focus on the
problems of meaning-debasement in Christian history, and cannot always focus
on benefits of ego elimination. I criticize the strategy of focusing on the
effects of ego elimination as a lone approach without also connecting it to
history of religions.

Some criticize the focus on the history of distortion about mystic knowledge,
and ask for core work on the effects of egolessness. I am skeptical about the
need to focus more on core egolessness study including benefits of
egolessness. They underestimate the extent to which Christianity has fallen
from a height and the crucial need to repair it. People can discuss core
egolessness in the unmoderated discussion group or many other groups.

One can be partly enlightened or transcendent even without full understanding
of the historical lies/distortions that impede and distract people from the
gnostic core. How well a person grasps the core of enlightenment is limited
by how well metaphor and religious history is understood.

At issue is the appropriate balance of writing about core gnosis, how that is
encoded in historical religions, and the history of how religions start with
core gnosis and became debased into abused literalism.


Regarding my recent postings on the history of literalization and debasement
of religious meaning, Steve wrote:
>>We know this already. Not to belittle the historical accuracy of your
points, but is this study really necessary? Yes these self-serving
power-mongers have peppered history
with a tangle of mess than would lead any serious seeker for wisdom running
the other way. But on this group we are supposed to be discussing how freedom
from the ego is the answer to beating all of this.


Corrections about Christian history are key and necessary. Scholars do not
understand the original meaning and how it was debased, and to keep their jobs
within the status quo establishment paradigm, they suppress glimmerings of it,
and an adequate study of it is urgently and crucially necessary.

Is freedom from the ego the solution for stopping the harms of debased
religion? Setting the historical record straight is a key part of the
solution, the goal being to stop the harms of debased religion, particularly,
to make gnosis available by debunking the debased version of Christianity and
setting the historical record straight to show that Christianity originally
was metaphorical description of core mystic-state experiential insight, and
was then debased and literalized for reasons of sociopolitical control.

In setting the historical record straight about Christianity, that involves
study of mythic/mystic metaphor, the question being, how did or does mythic
metaphor become literalized, debased, and abused? As soon as we say here is
core transcendent knowledge, and Christianity is really a metaphorical
expression of that core knowelddge, the historical question pops up
necessitating an adequate explanation: “I am skeptical, how could Christianity
really be about that, given that we’ve been told such a different story about
Christian meaning and origins?”

The 3 questions are deeply interlocked and one’s comprehension of one of these
questions is significantly limited by the degree of comprehension of the
others:
o What is core transcenndent knowledge?
o How is Christianity a metaphorical expression of that core?
o How historically did Christianity fall from being understood as a
metaphorical expression of core gnosis to being merely debased and abused
literalism?
Group: egodeath Message: 3559 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 19/10/2004
Subject: History of debasement & literalization of Christian metaphor
How historically did Christianity fall from being understood as a metaphorical
expression of core gnosis to being merely debased and abused literalism?

Jesus was invented as a rebuttal revision of the divinized Caesar figure.
Jesus had to be held as fleshly to compete against Caesar.

The gnostic-type assertion of Jesus’ fleshliness in Gospel of John supported
the double-entendre of mushroom flesh and infusion, which is real food to
really eat and drink.

Pre-Constantine Christianity relied heavily on two-layer meaning-switching,
double-entendre; the hide-then-reveal pattern which is found in the mind
itself during the ripening and revolutionary overthrow of the egoic mental
worldmodel. Valentinian Gnosticism per Pagels in The Gnostic Paul used
systematic switching from one set of meanings to another; the pre-initiation
or non-initiated set of meanings included more of a literalized Jesus, while
the initiated set of meanings had a more spiritual Jesus. However, their
literalized Jesus was not nearly as literalized as the modern,
Enlightenment-era conception of Jesus.

Constantine and his ilk literalized Christianity because the Jews had a
literal-history styled mysticism, and because literalizing Jesus enabled
exclusivist concentration of authority given to the organized power-mongering
top-down clerics.

Middle Ages pagan-Catholicism was fairly metaphor-savvy; we must not project
modern-era hyper-literalism across the board onto European Catholic history.
We must not assume that people in the middle ages had our modern
hyper-literalized Jesus conception in mind.

Protestantism literalized Christianity as a strategy to overthrow the Catholic
power.

The Enlightenment literalized Christianity partly as a strategy to overthrow
Christian sociopolitical power, and partly because they continued the
Protestant direction — this marked the complete and final debasement and
literalization of Christianity.

The industrial revolution caused people to move away from the land, losing
touch with visionary plants which had provided essential esoteric
understanding of mystic metaphor to the pagan-Catholic masses.
Group: egodeath Message: 3560 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 19/10/2004
Subject: Re: History of debasement & literalization of Christian metaphor
>>literalizing Jesus enabled exclusivist concentration of authority given to
the organized power-mongering top-down clerics.

“Jesus existed in the world only for a short time, and possessed all
authority, exclusively, then handed that authority on only to Peter, who
handed it on only to us.” Literalization created artificial scarcity of
authority, and limitation of who possesses authority.
Group: egodeath Message: 3561 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 19/10/2004
Subject: Re: Six-week break from posting
>—–Original Message—–
>From: Michael Hoffman
>Sent: Thursday, August 19, 2004 10:23 PM
>To: Egodeath Group
>Subject: [egodeath] Six-week break from posting

>I did a so-so job of not posting before; I ended up posting certain
>discoveries I wanted to provably date, and posted in another group and in my
>weblog. I vow not to post through September.

>I have written enough; just follow through on that line of analysis.


I will probably need to do such a break again.
Group: egodeath Message: 3562 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 19/10/2004
Subject: Watching memories fly by during loose cognition
Merker wrote (edited):
>>How often do people report the altered-state experience of perceiving one’s
life like on a movie reel which is seen standing apart from it? The
perception of one’s lifetime rushing by; one’s lifetime is seen rushing by.
This movie reel can be perceived as a huge loop where the end meets the
beginning.

>>This perception is rarely found in trip reports, yet in Rock lyrics it is a
fairly common theme. Even the more advanced trippers typically don’t seem to
be truly advanced: they uphold the common view of reality rather than having a
remodeled worldview. Rock artists seem to be the only visible group who
appear to have adopted a truly changed mental worldmodel regarding space,
time, self, freedom, control, and perception.

>>Rush lyrics about this include:

>>A dizzying lifetime
>>Reeling by on celluloid

>>He plays fast forward just as long as he can

>>You know how that rabbit feels
>>Going under your speeding wheels
>>Bright images flashing by
>>Like windshields towards a fly
>>Frozen in the fatal climb
>>But the wheels of time
>>Just pass you by


I’ve read about perceiving a rapid series of individual time-frames in studies
of tripping in books. Rock mystics are advanced trippers who work to express
and portray their advanced experiences, and work to have experiences in a way
that translates to expression. They trip artistically.

The following are related Rush lyrics about imagination, memory, perception,
rapid images, solipsistic meta-perception:

We’ve taken care of everything [passive subject of fate]
The words you hear the songs you sing
The pictures that give pleasure to your eyes.
… Our great computers fill the hallowed halls.
… All the gifts of life are held within our walls.

I used to think I had a pretty good life here, just plugging into my machine
for the day, then watching Templevision or reading a Temple Paper in the
evening.

Come explore your dreams’ creation
Enter this world of imagination
… Here where Time and Space collide

Sweet memories
Flashing very quickly by
… You’ll be there
When you know what I know

I have memory and awareness,
But I have no shape or form.
As a disembodied spirit,
I am dead and yet unborn.

I walk down vanity fair
Memory lane ev’rywhere
Wall Street shuffles there

Though it’s just a memory, some memories last forever.

Crimson, misty mem’ry,
hazy glimpse of me.

Art as expression,
… Will still capture our imaginations.

Living on a lighted stage
Approaches the unreal
For those who think and feel
In touch with some reality
Beyond the gilded cage.

Cast in this unlikely role,
Ill-equipped to act,

Living in the Limelight,
The universal dream

Wide-angle watcher
On life’s ancient tales,
Steeped in the history of London

Process information at half speed
Pause, rewind, replay,
Warm memory chip,
Random sample …

Things crawl in the darkness
That imagination spins

Memory banks unloading
… A struggle to exist
… It replays each of the days
A hundred years of routines

Let’s fly tonight
On our virtual wings
Press this key
To see amazing things
Group: egodeath Message: 3563 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 19/10/2004
Subject: Re: How Jewish-themed myst.relig. predom’d pag. world
An unpagan godman was ultimately chosen as the standard godman for the Roman
empire around 350 — he was popular precisely because he was painted as a
complete alternative to the Roman rulership system, as being completely
different, as coming completely and purely from outside the Roman system.
Thus we still see the denials that Jesus was a product of Hellenism “because
he could very well have been derived purely from Jewish sources”.

Jesus was so derived entirely from Jewish, anti-Roman sources, but
*deliberately*, in contrived fashion — first by anti-Rome early Christians
wanting a practical supplement and alternative to the Roman system, and then
later by the Roman governors when they were co-opting the growing Christian
movement and commandeering the troublesome rebellious Jewish legacy.

The Jesus godman figure didn’t “come from” Jewish religion; he was
deliberately patched together from there in order to create a superficially
Jewish styled version of the Hellenistic-type godman. The Jesus godman was
not a product created by Jewish stories independently of Hellenistic
influence: he was more like a figure that, inspired by mystery-religion
models, was deliberately fabricated from deliberately allowing only Jewish
thematic inputs on the surface.

On the deep, substantial level, the Jesus figure came from Hellenistic godman,
but for the surface level, deliberately only Jewish elements were selected, so
later the claim could be made that Jesus’ origin was fully independent from
the Hellenistic godman figures.

The separateness of the Jewish religion, the lack of influence from Pagan
religion, is largely a put-on, a pretence. The scribes worked hard at
appearing to only draw upon Jewish inputs, but non-Jewish inputs were present
under the Jewish-styled surface veneer that was overlaid to hide the
non-Jewish inputs. This is especially true for the origins of the Jesus
figure.

Early Christians portrayed Jesus as Jewish on the surface to represent an
alternative to the Roman system. The Roman governors portrayed Jesus as
Jewish and scripture-derived, to enable them to take over the Jewish
scriptures, to commandeer the growing alternative to the Roman system.


Caesar was crucified by pirates, and he was rescued and ransomed, then
crucified the pirates.


John Baptist’ enmity with Jesus in DaVinci — Jesus may have stood for
Rome-based rulers, ‘Jewish’ represented being against the rulers. Jesus
sometimes represented anti-Caesar; anti-State; anti-Rome. Ancient
anti-Romanism was expressed as Jewish-styled religion vs. Caesar cult and
other state-aligned cults. Later anti-Romeism was Jewish or John Baptist
being pitted against Catholic church — there, the Jesus figure may represent
top-down power, while John the Baptist represents egalitarian truth.

The Jewish-styled godman cult support network wasn’t so much a threat
competing head-to-head against Ruler Cult — more like, here was a popular
supplemental religious and social support system, ripe for takeover and
cooptation by the power mongers who already were in control and in charge.

The Jewish, anti-Rome system (at least thematically anti-Rome) was
successfully growing, increasing its numbers by offering the social-support
network that the honor/shame hierarchy system didn’t provide. Christianity
was a selective compromise, demanding the social-support benefits of the
Jewish network, without the needless additional Jewish requirements.

Christians wanted to extract from the Jewish system the alternative-to-Rome
surface themes and the anti-hierarchy social attitudes and the practical
benefits of the social support network. “Can’t we do like the Jewish network
system, but without the objectionable parts?”

To co-opt the Jewish alternative-to-Rome, the Roman governors had to fully
co-opt the Jewish scriptures, claiming the Rome-controlled Jesus figure is the
ultimate lead-up of the Jewish religion.

The Jesus figure connoted the wish for an alternative to Roman top-down
control. The Roman controllers took over the Jesus figure, thus taking over
and controlling the wish for an alternative to their control. DaVinci’s John
Baptizer figure would then be wagging the finger at the Jesus figure in order
to wag it at the Rome-based governors whether we call those Caesar or Pope.

Virgin Mary also shifts similarly in alignment: she is Isis renamed, was
embraced typically by the masses against the top-down controlled Catholic
orders, thus being somewhat anti-Rome, and was identified by Protestants with
Rome when Protestants were intent on stripping Rome’s power by stripping
Christianity of all mystery-religion, iconography, images, mystic
experiencing, and symbols, leaving only literalist supernaturalism,
conduct-of-life ethics, and Calvinist determinism as opposed to salvation
through Catholic ritual.
Group: egodeath Message: 3564 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/10/2004
Subject: Re: Toward a resource page for “No Historical Paul or Apostles”
My response to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/JesusMysteries/message/19915 .


When Jesus & The Goddess was published, around Sep. 2001, I asked Freke &
Gandy point blank whether Paul existed, and they said they don’t know, hard to
say. However, for this matrix, I’d consider “Freke & Gandy” to refer to the
published writings in the pair of books, The Jesus Mysteries and Jesus & The
Goddess, where the working assumption is that Paul existed.

Scholars tend to pick similar rather than dissimilar answers to the questions
about HJ and PA. It’s easy to find difference-by-1 combinations (12, 43, 45),
but there are few difference-by-2, or greater, combinations (13, 14, 15, 51,
52, 53). Answers/positions 1-5 on each question naturally map together. When
you plot all scholars, it visually shows a trend of predominance of adherence
to combinations 1&1, 2&2, 3&3, 4&4, 5&5, with fewer scholars holding
mismatches such as 1&5, 5&1, 2&4, 4&2.

Klaus asks, are combinations 1&2, 1&3, 1&4, 1&5, 4&1, and 5&1 unconceivable?
They are conceivable, but the natural fitting of ideas together makes certain
position-combinations natural and common, and certain other
position-combinations unnatural and rare. A visible band appears, naturally
pairing like combinations (11, 22, 33, 44, and 55), with steady falloff as you
move away from that central band into the disjointed combinations.

# scholars per position, as identified by Klaus
1 2 3 4 5 (< response to PA question)
1 4 0 0 0 0
2 2 5 1 0 0
3 1 5 4 1 0
4 0 3 4 1 0
5 0 5 3 2 5
^– response to HJ question

The curve sags toward the lower left by a factor of 25 vs. 2; more scholars
downgrade Jesus’ historicity than Paul’s; the scenario [Jesus existed but Paul
didn’t] is highly inconceivable, while [Jesus didn’t exist but Paul did] seems
more plausible. Scholars question Jesus’ historicity before Paul’s, so
today’s positions are biased in the direction of doubting Jesus’ historicity
while uncritically assuming Paul’s historicity, since we simply haven’t gotten
around to asking the question of Paul’s historicity yet.

Combinations 11, 33, and 55 graphically define the main band of natural
position-combinations. That’s [11] (Conservative), [22, 33, 23, 32]
(Liberal), and [44, 55, 45, 54] (Radical). These are the Conservative,
Liberal, and Radical paradigms as manifested by the answers to the Historical
Jesus question with a set of answers provided and the Pauline-Authenticity
question with a set of answers provided.

The taxonomy matrix is powerful for opening up combinatorial possibilities in
a useful, organized way. Klaus posed a 5×5 position matrix, producing 25
answer-sets. He effectively defined two questions, with 5 multiple-choice
answers, put them to scholars, and got back potentially 25
answer-combinations. Had he defined 3 questions, each with 5 multiple-choice
answers, there would be 125 answer-combinations — requiring a representation
with a 3-d answer-space collapsed into 2-d.

For example, add the question “Did Justin Martyr exist?” and offer 5
multiple-choice answers. I expect the 5&5 scholars Klauss identified —
ahistorical Jesus and Paul — would naturally say that Justin Martyr was a
fabricated, back-projected figure invented by the Tertullian/Eusebius-type
crowd.

My view is 5&5 or 5&4; there is a challenge regarding terminology, about what
it means for Paul to have existed. If there were several Paul-like figures,
one observer might point to one and say ‘see, Paul existed’, while another
person might look upon the same reality and declare ‘see, Paul didn’t exist’.
When you ask people “Did Paul exist”, you really need to expand at length and
even argue about what justifiably qualifies as “Paul having existed”.

Perfect agreement is difficult to reach, because of what combinations of
word-senses people feel are justified. Different people might never come to
an agreement about the right way to define the taxonomy matrix positions and
assign scholars to each combinatorial possibility.

A good way to create an n*n matrix is to define a set of multiple-choice
questions. But different people might never come to an agreement about the
most useful, justified way to frame a set of questions to address to each
scholar. The position or theory the matrix-maker holds is likely to result in
a typical version of the resulting matrix. On the other hand, many
researchers in practice try out many positions and are not a priori committed,
or they move through a sequence of positions over the years and thus have
first-hand familiarity with each paradigm.

Worldviews regarding the nature of myth, Christian origins, historicity of
Jesus, historicity of Paul, and the nature of the mystic state can be grouped
into three position-combinations or general master paradigms: Conservative,
Liberal, and Radical, such that believing there was no Jesus naturally tends
to fit together with believing that all the gospel and NT cast of characters
were ahistorical. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/JesusMysteries/message/18172

You can perform a generalization zoom-out transformation or a detail zoom-in
transformation on the HJ-PA taxonomy: instead of 5 positions, you could define
a 3×3 position matrix — or a 7×7 position matrix. These would be equivalent
to asking two questions, each with 3 or 5 or 7 multiple-choice answers to pick
from. 5×5 is the most generally useful; 3×3 and 7×7 are both boldly
ambitious: 3×3 requires a daring amount of generalization to try to uphold,
and 7×7 requires a superhuman amount of research and theorizing.

Look at Klaus’ high-level position labels for the multiple-choice answers for
his two questions:

Historical Jesus? Pick an answer/position:
1. Evangelical (Conservative)
2. Secular/liberal (Liberal)
3. Minimal (Liberal)
4. Cryptic (Radical)
5. Mythical (Radical)

Pauline-Authenticity? Pick an answer/position:
1. Traditional (Conservative)
2. Standard (Liberal)
3. Modified (Liberal)
4. Ghostwrite (Radical)
5. Ahistorical (Radical)

Now zoom out, simplify, combine the terms, and reduce the number of
answers/positions to pick from. Collapse 2 and 3 together, and collapse 4 and
5 together. The result is:
1. Conservative
2. Liberal
3. Radical

Each question, such as “which theory of myth do you hold, out of these 3
options”, has a Conservative, Liberal, and Radical answer — and all the
Conservative answers to the various questions all fit together as a natural
set. If you hold theory C of the nature of myth, you are naturally inclined
to hold theory C about Jesus’ historicity and hold theory C about Paul’s
historicity. If you hold the R-type theory about Jesus’ historicity, you are
naturally inclined to hold the matching R-type theory about Paul’s
historicity.


— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 3565 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/10/2004
Subject: Re: Toward a resource page for “No Historical Paul or Apostles”
Regarding the previous posting,

HJ = the question of whether Historical Jesus existed

PA = the question of Pauline Authenticity; whether any of the Pauline epistles
in the New Testament were authentically written by St. Paul the Apostle — if
none, this is tantamount to denying Paul’s historicity, at least to some
Radical scholars, though other Radical scholars seem unconcerned with
questioning Paul’s historicity even while they assert that all Paulines were
falsely attributed to Paul.
Group: egodeath Message: 3566 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/10/2004
Subject: Break from posting, considering changed format
Life is easy and pleasant focusing on one thing at a time. I am taking a
two-month break from posting and from reading Philosophy.


Regarding Philosophy, it is time to switch emphasis to writing formal
articles; I’m now in the polishing and details phase of theorizing about
transcendent knowledge. From here on out, everything to read and write is
essentially just more of the same kind of connect-the-dots. I don’t really
want or need any more insights, that would imply that the basic theory is not
complete, but it is complete, adequate, basically seaworthy; it flies, the
structure is finished and just needs polishing/details like the labor of
writing up a glossary. The theory has a certain balance now.

Always these days I respond with “See what I already wrote, but for your
particular question or point, use a simple combination of these four postings
and the answer or perspective is immediately obvious, it falls out readily.”
I’m lately just rehashing the same material in slightly different
configurations.

I don’t need free-form posting now so much as work on formal articles. The
more I post even about the same essential material, the better my command of
the terminology usage and presentation, but I’ve crossed the point of
diminishing returns and am ready to pour the words into a more lasting,
formal, organized structure. My focus of late always seems a matter of
critiquing cluelessness and fallacies in the books and magazines; I identified
the cliched paradigms and their typical signature fallacies.

The history of cluelessness and enlightenment and transcendence is complex,
tricky, and subtle, but not endlessly so; after awhile, there are only so many
forms of metaphorizing primary religious experiencing. I only have an
outline, but it is an adequate outline; the rest will be details and polishing
and decoration. Lately I approach the books not for revolutionary insight any
more, but merely for additional details to further, yet further, prove and
support and illustrate my points I’ve already written about at some length.

Yet only recently did I pull in and explicitly connect my previous thought to
some major areas such as apophatic theology and Western estoericism. I value
additional supporting evidence such as for visionary plants as the main
wellspring of religion, but that is more of the same; there is enough evidence
already, all things considered, to prove beyond a reasonable doubt this theory
of transcendent knowledge and its mapping to myth-religion-philosophy.

I wouldn’t mind learning more; it’s enjoyable and helpful, but not absolutely
required — this is like “normal science” as opposed to a “revolutionary
science” phase; I’ve entered recently into my “normal science” phase of
research.

I particularly mark when my eyes were opened to just how entrenched the
predominant cluelessness was in the theory of myth — “those idiots, modern
scholars, are all completely misreading the nature of myth and the role of
entheogens; they are operating all within the broken, Liberal paradigm, such
as Campbellian waking-consciousness storytelling and Jungian
dreaming-consciuosness symbolism, and taking the minimal theory of entheogens
in religion for granted. But myth-religion is actually about visionary-plant
experiences.”

It all came together, these pieces I already knew, showing me the full extent
and depth of the error of the modern paradigm(s) *across these multiple
fields*. That was the threshold into a new stage of theorizing, into a
distinctly more sure-footed mode of writing. Now I’m writing the grand
unified theory of multidisciplinary cluelessness and systematic category
error.

Reading Peter Kingsley and Neville Drury helped make this leap to see just how
off-base the modern picture of pre-Socratic philosophy and of magic are: both
fields are, properly, mystic altered state philosophy and
metaphorical-experiential visionary-plant esotericism.

That’s the latest insight I had, fully recognizing the grand cross-field
paradigmatic/systematic error that has uniformly screwed up *all* these
fields — schizophrenia, near-death-experiencing, theory of myth, theory of
mysticism, Reformed theology limitations, debased literalist religion,
entheogen diminishment in Liberal Buddhism, in-time
ordinary-state-of-consciousness causal-chain determinism, anti-realist
Copenhagenist interpretation of Quantum Physics, and so on.


— Michael Hoffman
http://www.egodeath.com — simple theory of the ego-death and rebirth
experience. The essence, paradigm, origin, and fountainhead of religion is
the use of visionary plants to routinely trigger the intense mystic altered
state, producing loose cognitive association binding, which then produces an
experience of frozen block-universe determinism with a single, pre-existing,
ever-existing future. The return of the ordinary state of consciousness is
allegorized as a transcendence of Necessity or cosmic determinism. Myth
describes this mystic-state experience. Initiation is classically a series of
some 8 visionary-plant sessions, interspersed with study of perennial
philosophy. Most religion is a distortion, corruption, literalization, and
cooptation of this standard initiation system.
Group: egodeath Message: 3567 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/10/2004
Subject: No-separate-self vs. transcending det’c universe
No-separate-self vs. transcending the deterministic block-unity universe

If all is one, should I love my attacker as myself? If there is no separate
self, does that contradict the religious-philosophy idea of being in the world
but *not* of it? See the new book Urban Dharma (title?) which has a chapter
Dark Alley.

See Alan Watts’ chapter Is It Serious? about the universal put-on, universe
split against itself, and see the book of Job in the Jewish Bible/Old
Testament for treatment of this irony of religious love and
unity-consciousness in spite of the worst mundane events. And the saying
attributed to the Jesus figure, love your enemy as yourself.
Immanence/transcendence remain as two points of view in theology; the saved
soul is lifted out from the world of block-universe determinism.

The lower half of transcendent experiencing is block-universe unity-immersion,
then the higher after that — soon after that — in astral ascent mysticism is
being lifted out, but only the spiritual portion of the person is lifted out;
the lower, soul portion (body and psyche/soul) remains immersed in the block
universe.

These multiple points of view or aspects of unity consciousness,
block-universe, and rising out from it, and the multi-phase trajectory of the
classic spiritual path, give rise to complex religious theory/theology.

The phrase no-free-will includes miraculously transcending no-free-will (being
fished out from the world by the savior/redeemer figure).

The phrase no-separate-self could include notes about apparent or practically
separate selves per Watts, and notes about the idea of separating the saved
from the damned people — or separating the saved portion of each person from
the damned portion of each person. All is one and one is all, but the saved
portion of the person is born and miraculously transcendently separated out
from the deterministic cosmic rock universe.


See what I’ve written already, slightly recombine the ideas, then it’s easy to
compute my theoretical perspective on the interesting seeming inconsistencies
and paradoxes or problems. You have to calculate the solutions to these
particular problems yourself. I’ve already provided the system of math. I
can’t do every calculation myself, any more than Decartes could have when he
published his math theories. Thus it’s now more important for me to organize
what I’ve already written, rather than spending time working out the answers
to endless routine questions.

I’ve demonstrated time and again how to apply the theory to such problems;
readers need to do the same.
Group: egodeath Message: 3568 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/10/2004
Subject: Lyrics: Alice Designs, by the Sugarbeats
Compilation: We Can Fly
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00006O0PH

Alice Designs
Artist: The Sugarbeats
1966
Track 20

The style is like Strawberry Alarm Clock. Pretty, Paisley Pop harmonies,
‘clean’ electric guitar, flute, harpsichord-sound
Lyrics are somewhat like Your Gold Dress by Dukes of Stratosphear.
It’s essentially about Isis (or Virgin Mary).


Just about the time that I’m aware of where it’s at
I think of where it’s been
There is no light (love?) that covers (?) all who falsify but die
To sink or dare to swim

But everything I am belongs to Alice
I view the fundamental truth inside her palace
She gives me food for thought
All the gold could not have bought
And the energy of life flows from her chalice

Alice designs her name all up side my brain
Alice delights the garden of my soul
Alice designs her name all over my sign
But she’s not mine, she belongs to all

All of us who cling beneath her cape
And realize they no longer must escape
All of us who gaze into her eyes
And see themselves in unfamiliar guise
All of us who wanted to be real
But were forced to hide the way we tried to feel

All of us rejected by the trend (?)
When they asked us if we’d kill for them we laughed
All of us who used to wear a mask
Now they need us they’ll do anything we ask
Group: egodeath Message: 3569 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 20/10/2004
Subject: Lyrics: My Friend Jack (explicit version)
Song: My Friend Jack
Artist: The Smoke
Compilation: Electric Sugar Cube Flashbacks
Version: demo/outtake with explicit lyrics, released in Germany only
Year: ?
Music style: 1967-style full-on psych with tremolo fuzz guitar
Transcribed by Michael Hoffman


My friend Jack eats sugar lumps
My friend Jack eats sugar lumps
Oh, what beautiful things he sees
Oh, what beautiful things he sees

He’s on a voyage
Across an ocean
Waves of his mind
Are set in motion
Lost in a wonderland
Of color and of sound

My friend Jack eats sugar lumps
My friend Jack eats sugar lumps
Oh, what beautiful things he sees
Oh, what beautiful things he sees

He’s seeing things
You can’t imagine
Landscapes in sound
Revealing to him
More than a million shapes
The eye could never see

Can’t you see how happy he is
Nothing seems to put him down
People think that he’s just crazy
He’s the weirdest cat in town

My friend Jack eats sugar lumps
My friend Jack eats sugar lumps
Oh, what beautiful things he sees
Oh, what beautiful things he sees

He’s on a voyage
Across an ocean
Waves of his mind
Are set in motion
Lost in a wonderland
Of color and of sound

My friend Jack eats sugar lumps
My friend Jack eats sugar lumps
Oh, what beautiful things he sees
Oh, what beautiful things he sees

Egodeath Yahoo Group – Digest 50: 2003-11-12

Site Map


Group: egodeath Message: 2495 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 12/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
Group: egodeath Message: 2496 From: Dick Richardson Date: 12/11/2003
Subject: Re: Michael Hoffman, advocate of cosmic escape through nature mysti
Group: egodeath Message: 2497 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 12/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
Group: egodeath Message: 2498 From: Dick Richardson Date: 12/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
Group: egodeath Message: 2499 From: Dick Richardson Date: 12/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
Group: egodeath Message: 2500 From: Dick Richardson Date: 12/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
Group: egodeath Message: 2501 From: Dick Richardson Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: What seekest thou and why?
Group: egodeath Message: 2502 From: Dick Richardson Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Fw: Quotes and responses
Group: egodeath Message: 2503 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
Group: egodeath Message: 2504 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
Group: egodeath Message: 2505 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
Group: egodeath Message: 2506 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: What seekest thou and why?
Group: egodeath Message: 2507 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Fw: Quotes and responses
Group: egodeath Message: 2508 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Equivalence of different mystic camps and allegories
Group: egodeath Message: 2509 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Unlocking the Bible Codes – Found Codes
Group: egodeath Message: 2510 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Another tool to help destroy / is egodeath beneficial to societ
Group: egodeath Message: 2511 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: The very late invention of the Cross
Group: egodeath Message: 2512 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Cosmic escape: read mysticism allegorically/descriptively, not lite
Group: egodeath Message: 2513 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: On-topic debate on ego death
Group: egodeath Message: 2514 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Michael Hoffman, advocate of cosmic escape through nature mysti
Group: egodeath Message: 2515 From: Dick Richardson Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
Group: egodeath Message: 2516 From: Dick Richardson Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Michael Hoffman, advocate of cosmic escape through nature mysti
Group: egodeath Message: 2517 From: Dick Richardson Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Evolving Psychic Archetypes
Group: egodeath Message: 2518 From: Khem Caigan Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
Group: egodeath Message: 2519 From: Khem Caigan Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: (no subject)
Group: egodeath Message: 2520 From: Khem Caigan Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Michael Hoffman, advocate of cosmic escape through nature mysti
Group: egodeath Message: 2521 From: Dick Richardson Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Fw: Advocates of Mind altering drugs.
Group: egodeath Message: 2522 From: Dick Richardson Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Michael Hoffman, advocate of cosmic escape through nature mysti
Group: egodeath Message: 2523 From: wrmspirit Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: (no subject)
Group: egodeath Message: 2524 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Michael Hoffman, advocate of cosmic escape through nature mysti
Group: egodeath Message: 2525 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
Group: egodeath Message: 2526 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
Group: egodeath Message: 2527 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
Group: egodeath Message: 2528 From: toosirius666 Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Jack Herer and James Arthur Cannabis Cup Nov. 20th 2003
Group: egodeath Message: 2529 From: Khem Caigan Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: Michael Hoffman, advocate of cosmic escape through nature mysti
Group: egodeath Message: 2531 From: Dick Richardson Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
Group: egodeath Message: 2532 From: mindexpand2001 Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: why all the arguing?
Group: egodeath Message: 2533 From: Dick Richardson Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: why all the arguing?
Group: egodeath Message: 2534 From: Dick Richardson Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Fw: [gnosis284] science today
Group: egodeath Message: 2535 From: Dick Richardson Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: The big Picture
Group: egodeath Message: 2536 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
Group: egodeath Message: 2537 From: mindexpand2001 Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
Group: egodeath Message: 2538 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
Group: egodeath Message: 2539 From: Dick Richardson Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
Group: egodeath Message: 2540 From: Dick Richardson Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Fw: [gnosis284] RE: Buddhism
Group: egodeath Message: 2541 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: The big Picture
Group: egodeath Message: 2542 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
Group: egodeath Message: 2543 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: Fw: [gnosis284] RE: Buddhism
Group: egodeath Message: 2544 From: Dick Richardson Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: The big Picture
Group: egodeath Message: 2545 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: The big Picture



Group: egodeath Message: 2495 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 12/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
Try, if you are interested…..

http://members.tripod.com/~pc93/rwr.htm

http://www.marharrell.com/Pages/DRich01.html

http://www.ehe.org/display/ehe-autobiography.cfm?ID=83

In the first address you will find one of my early books – The
Tractate on
Transcendence. Therein you will find five chapters under the
headings EXEGESIS,
therein you will find the answer to your above question. And feel
free to
compare it all (all twenty years of it) with drug induced
experiences. And then
tell me that these things do not come about other than by
invocation – I did not
even want the stuff – I was just stuck with it. So, there you go,
and such is
life and the nature of reality.

Dick.<<<<<

I will look at this and I will get back to you. I am well aware
that some people have unusual brain chemistry.

What i think you need to understand is that for a teaching to have
any effect, it has to apply to a broad range of people.

As to whether the experiences you have hd are as the high end as you
claim, I will give you my opinion after I read them.

dc
Group: egodeath Message: 2496 From: Dick Richardson Date: 12/11/2003
Subject: Re: Michael Hoffman, advocate of cosmic escape through nature mysti
Khem writes…. [Interesting and creative use of the word fraud ]

Not my word Mr – try reading the book about him written by a member of his own family, the book is called – The Genuine Fraud. So once again assumption is on the rampage here as I have already pointed out. Do some reading friend. Watt’s NEVER KNEW the things he was preaching about – and he died trying to find them by way of drugs. Moreover, what Watts led people to believe that he knew was not even a fraction of what exists to be known and experienced. Ipso Facto.

Dick.
—– Original Message —–
From: Khem Caigan
To: Egodeath Group
Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2003 3:07 PM
Subject: Re: [egodeath] Michael Hoffman, advocate of cosmic escape through nature mysticism




Dick doth schriebble:
<SNIPS>
> Even the hippie movement was originally founded by such frauds as
> Alan Watts (an English misfit), and Co, who were popping pills
> until it killed him/them. And look at the legacy that movement
> left; it is still with society today – about five percent zapped
> out junkies.
> Some ideal, some movement, some inspiration – some legacy.

Interesting and creative use of the word fraud –


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 2497 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 12/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
Okay Dick I have read carefully your experiences.

Naturally you search for others to validate your experience and
naturally you have taken criticism from other quarters then this
Yahoo group about them. It is also natural to want to find others
that have had these kind of experiences.

Before i go into anything further would you please answer some
questions?

1. Prior to your experience at age 24, had you ever used any
Entheogens at all…even Marijuana?

2. On the day of your first experience, when you put the music on
what had you ben eating?

3. You mention coffe quite a bit, How much coffee were you
drinking? Were you using any other stimulants? What were your
drinking habits?

4. What was your main “religious,” influence at the time of that
experience?

5. Are you aware of endogenous DMT?

6. Since those main experiences, how often if ever did you have
experiences of that kind later in your life?

7. Did you ever have any impairment in your level of functioning in
daily life, that for instance plagues people with mental illness?
(simply a question, not an assumption or insult)


Pleae answers these questions for me.


Reading your experience it is clear that it is on the level of
common, decent dose, Entheogenic experience. Had you said at the
beginning “I had eaten some moldy rye bread that day” or “I had
eaten a toadstool,” then pointing to the biochemical trigger would
be easy.

I have done intake on many a Acute Psych admission, and in some of
those cases I would discover excessive coffee drinking and an
apparent sensitively to caffeine. One young man had decided to
roll a cigarette out of sage. Also accidental ingestion of Ergot,
historically has led to religious experience where the person was
unaware of the initial trigger and just sumed it was divine
intervention.

One thing that is great about entheogen use, is that one can easily
replicate and test the validity of one’s experience and learn more
quite easily…and actually learn to be wholly objective about it,
to test what is a function of the inherent mental imagery, what is
really awareness of inner physical structure (Psychedelic
Structuralism theory) and what is actually showing you principles
of reality, stripped of the clothing of belief sysytem imprints.

As far as the content you depict in these experiences, it all sounds
like initial, decent dose, entheogenic experience and you reacted to
it in a similar way as most people initially using entheogens in a
serious way do.

As one can step back fron there experience and integrate it further
one can gradually become aware of the mechanistic way in which the
experience unfolded and then become more scientific about their
experience.

I believe you need to study, entheogens further. But until knowing
more about you i wouldn’t advise you to start experimenting. Some
small percentage of people are overly sensitive to entheogenic
triggers and if not prepared properly, can run into issues.

In general, when a Entheogen user fails to maintain objectivity,
they can get swayed quickly into developing a belif in their
specialness. For instance they do not realize that the experience
that showed them “god” may be a ubiquitous thing and they begin to
devlop the idea they are in the Messiah category, when in fact all
people share this innate ability to see thing as they really are.


It is also a common tendancy for people to fixate on a particular
experience and lose objectivity.

dc
Group: egodeath Message: 2498 From: Dick Richardson Date: 12/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
[ I will give you my opinion after I read them. ]


And by what criteria will you judge Sir ? Judgement can only be made from having walked further down a road than the reference point from where the assertion being stated has its point of reference. You cannot judge what lies at the end of a road until such time that one has been to end of that road. Maybe you have, maybe you have not. But I would welcome some idea of your perspective upon which your opinion will be based – – from hindsight or speculation?

Having done various aspects of both teaching and instruction over the last forty years one soon learns the lesson (whilst teaching) that one has to know ones stuff better than the pupil. As a driving school proprietor for many years I occasional had a pupil whom I had to tell them that they did not need lessons for they were already driving well above the standard required – but not often. When it came to teaching sales representatives then there were times when no amount of instruction could teach them to sell.

Dick.





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 2499 From: Dick Richardson Date: 12/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
[This is not true. There have never been “millions of folks,”
claiming substantail religious experience. ]

How do you know; have you counted them? I have found that in most cases one has to drag it out of them – for they are too frightened to say anything in this crazy world. Moreover, as I said before, people have being having them since we lived in caves; and ‘millions’ does not necessarily means a large percentage of all human beings that have existed. But although mystic experiences are quite rare (especially the deeper kinds) there are a lot of people out there – and a small percentage of a hell of lot is quite a few.

[You have gotten angry ]

You are very astute Sir – yes I have indeed. I came on this list in good faith; and very polite, and got dealt shit – I too can dish it out if one has too, I prefer not to; but we live in a world of needs must eh. If this lot can dish it out then this lot can learn to take it – or you can pull the plug on me – pity you missed the nice guy whilst he was here.

[attacking using the “drug” word.]

Oh no Sir, I am not attacking; I am defending. I have not gone on to the attack yet. And the drug word IS the operative word on this forum it seems.

[What you really should understand is… ] Blaa blaa blaa, all I get on this list is people telling me what I should understand – what about you lot then – have you no more understanding to do? Oh, well of course not, for you know it all.

Oh, by the way son, anyone who has already had their awakening (as you put it) would never get involved in man made religions – don’t you know. Well, there is something which you ought to understand then eh !

[In thirty five years of being involved with Buddhists I find that the vasdt majority of people are just as inexperienced as before. ]

Well you would do son, for Buddhism is both crap and wrong. Did you not know that Buddhism was set up as a psychological ploy to try and rid that part of the world of all its religions at that time. The ‘philosophy’ which states that there is no real self in the machine – and yet that self reincarnates. They want to get their act together. Moreover, you cannot destroy a lie with yet another lie.

Is that it for now; yup, seems so? Right, time for a quiet pint of ale then.

Dick.






[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 2500 From: Dick Richardson Date: 12/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
[Okay Dick I have read carefully your experiences. ]

Try reading the whole book. Ok, I will answer your questions as you went to that trouble. But once again I have to reiterate that you are making many false assumptions in your mail.

First, I am not seeking confirmation of my or any experiences – one does not need one for the experience itself does not need confirmation – IT happened. I do not give a damn of fifty million have had the same experiences as me or none of them have – it is irrelevant. Experience is for the observer.

[Naturally you search for others to validate your experience ] Wrong; I do not. Do not judge by what YOU may do or others may do – I AM ME.

[naturally you have taken criticism from other quarters then this
Yahoo group about them ] Wrong. I have made thousands of friends and good acquaintances all over the world and on five continents (and many in the USA – all over the USA – some of my best friends; and I much prefer yank academics to British ones).

[It is also natural to want to find others that have had these kind of experiences.] What were you guys saying to me the other day about what is natural? I do not give a damn either way son.

[1. Prior to your experience at age 24, had you ever used any Entheogens at all…even Marijuana? ] Most certainly not; I have never taken drugs other than the occasion smoke of golden Virginia home rolled fags. I have never been ill; never had a headache or hangover in my life and so I can even count the number of aspirins I have had on one had. Had a nasty toothache once for which I took some aspirins, but that is all.

[2. On the day of your first experience, when you put the music on what had you ben eating? ] The usual crap which I have been eating all my life – sausage egg and chips and other such fast food. I eat to stay alive – I do not live to eat. Food does not interest me other than a wee bit to stay alive.

[3. You mention coffe quite a bit, How much coffee were you drinking? Were you using any other stimulants? What were your drinking habits? ] I did not drink coffee until I was 36 years of age. But at that time vary rarely. I used to drink milk, water or tea. I drink gallons of coffee now – my second wife started me on it.

[4. What was your main “religious,” influence at the time of that experience? ]

I was born hating religions – I am here to destroy them. I was taken into a church for the first time when I was seven. When I heard what they were saying I physically threw up in disgust – they rushed me out quick.

[5. Are you aware of endogenous DMT? ] I have read a lot of things in my time but cannot remember them all now. I may have done and I may not; remind me.

[6. Since those main experiences, how often if ever did you have experiences of that kind later in your life? ]

One does not need to see the same thing twice. But after that first one I had regular psychic experiences for twenty years and they all taught me something different. But the last event was another big mystical event twenty years after the first – the consummatum incarnate – as it had been in transcendence then so too did it become on earth. I never need the same experience twice.

[7. Did you ever have any impairment in your level of functioning in
daily life, that for instance plagues people with mental illness?
(simply a question, not an assumption or insult) ]

No insult taken – thick skinned you know. I have never been either physically ill or mentally ill in my life. I am of about average intelligence; I learn very quick. I am exceptionally strong (just born that way) much to the dismay of bullies. I have never passed out or fainted in my life – and my constitution is that of an ox. All my sensory inputs (and other antenna) are working fine and I can still chase sixteen your-old’s around the block. I have a very good sense of humour (far better than the Germans you know :- ))) and most folk think I am good fun to be with. So no problems in my life. All is just fine – and five healthy bright kids.

I have never held beliefs in my life – knowledge of some things and ignorance of other is good enough for me. I was asked to become a Bishop in a church once – thank you ma’am but no thanks. I have been offered money for helping people ($6000 once) same again, thank you ma’am but no thanks. Nobody can buy me and I am not for sale.

Hope this answers your questions Sir.

Dick.





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 2501 From: Dick Richardson Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: What seekest thou and why?
Given that at least the active members of this list are seemingly seeking something by way of deliberately taking in substances to their system (I will not use the word drugs if it is a sore point here) then could I ask a few questions maybe?

(1) If a person is seeking something then presumably they do not have it; for one does not go looking for something which is not missing. So, could I ask as to what it is they assume or believe that they are looking for? Please do not say something like ‘enlightenment’ without defining your terms in a little more detail.

(2) One would not go to the trouble of looking for something without a reason of some kind. So, why do they want whatever it is they are seeking for?

(3) What will they (you) do with it if ever they find it?

(4) What do they think or believing that the acquisition of it will do for them?

(5) One of course can only know something (in the true sense of to KNOW) from hindsight. Inference and deduction are not knowledge in the strict sense. Hence anything one reads or hears is simply hearsay – one does not know the experience of a tree simply by hearing or reading the word ‘tree’. So, if one is seeking something on the say-so of hearsay then what makes them assume that it is really there at al l- given that human beings can and do at times tell lies? If that which they were seeking from hearsay did not actually exist then they are wasting a whole lifetime not only by seeking it but also possibly damaging their system by the over use of stimulants of one kind or another – or simply wasting so much time in meditative practices?

(6) How many seekers on this list have found what they were looking for?

Many thanks for your anticipated co-operation.

Dick.







[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 2502 From: Dick Richardson Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Fw: Quotes and responses
—– Original Message —–
From: Dick Richardson
To: gnosis284
Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2003 8:26 AM
Subject: Quotes and responses



A few quotes from the Christians book along with comments from a modern day mystic. (according to academic Neurology mystics are people who are suffering from Rapid Brain Deterioration – so come to your own conclusions).


” I tell you this: a rich man will find it hard to enter the kingdom of heaven”.


Why? Easy, because they have too much of the wrong kind of stuff to think about. A person wealthy in worldly goodies will invariably find that all their time is taken up with administrating their wealth; thinking about putting it to work, keeping it, adding to it, and thinking about what to do with it. When is their mind ever free to think about life itself? Let alone relaxing sufficiently to feel its naked essential quality. That is why. When do they get time to simply grab the day and go with the flow? A camel would indeed float through the eye of a needle sooner. The irony is that a wealthy person who does not have to worry about feeding their kids and cleaning out toilets every day truly is in the best position to relax and go with the flow. But they do not. So tough luck. I do not envy them.


“You are the light of the world”!


Well, I think I have said enough about that already in this book. I would just add – ‘know your self’.


“The lamp of your body is the eye”!


The real you is that part which sees and knows – the observer of the observed.


“Put away anxious thought about food and drink”!


You will probably get enough food to eat and drink, and the things which you need here anyway. So do not spend all your time thinking about them and storing it all away. Think of other things and observe life. If you do happen to starve, which is unlikely in a half way decent society, then you will no longer be anxious about food and drink anyway. There are more important things than simply staying alive for a long time.


“Always treat others as you would like them to treat you” !


Not the best way of putting it sunshine – Always treat others the way in which you would like them to treat your children. For you love and care for your children more than you do yourself.


“I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” !


Mystics are here to hack down the weeds of destruction and ego’s.


“You will hear and hear, but never understand; you will look and look, but never see”!


You cannot live life by proxy; and you cannot give experience, knowledge and understanding away. You have to know and understand for your self. The physical ears and eyes will never reveal it.


“The harvest is the end of time – the reapers are angels”!


You cannot know the eternal realm and reap that fruit until time stops moving; and when you are there you will not be a physical entity – but pure primordial mind.


“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure buried in a field”!


Yeah, sure is; buried deep below all other fields of emanation which are brought forth from the point of no duration. Do not go looking in your cabbage patch however.


“Can you not see that that which goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is discharged into the drain: but that which comes out of the mouth has its origins in the heart”!


Yup, sure does – and it reveals the colour of it too.


“If anyone wants to follow me then he must leave self behind”!


Well, you cannot say it any clearer than that can you. And I have been saying the same thing for forty years and throughout this book.


“If any man will let himself be lost he will find his true Self” !


And so it is. Why could they not understand it then; tis plain enough – get lost to get found. Annihilation does a proper job of it. Mind you, you cannot do it by choice so do not try it. But you can put yourself in the way of it happening if you relax at times, and go with the flow; and put the little ego to bed.


“What an unbelieving and perverse generation, how much longer must I endure you”!


I know the feeling chum; but do not break into a sweat about it; for they have not seen what you have seen, and they do not know what you know – be patient lad. And anyway, you cannot stay here for ever as you well know. So, go and cool off in the pond mate.


“In very truth I tell you, we (mystics) speak of what we know, and testify to what we have seen, and yet you all (including neurologists mate) reject our testimony. If you disbelieve me when I talk about things on earth, how are you to believe when I tell you things about heaven”!


Don’t expect too much of them chum; keep your powder dry son.


“You Samaritans (Don’t forget the JW’s mate) worship without knowing what you worship, while we (mystics) worship what we know” !


So what do you expect them to do then mate? They cannot digest that which they have not eaten old son – so damn well explain it to them better. If they do not understand then it is YOUR fault, not theirs.


“As the father raises the dead (resurrection from annihilation) and gives them life, so the son (your true self in paradise) gives life to men”!


Well, you do not give them life old mate, but a little inspiration to live if you are lucky and can get through to them eh; but don’t play at the sodding job, get real mate!


” I will not leave you bereft: I am coming back to you” !


Yup, that is right. These words are what I termed ‘Synetic Dialogue’, which means speaking whilst in this world on behalf of that part of our self which exist in eternity. And your Self will come back to you when time ends. Ipso Facto.


“They will ban you from the synagogue” !


Obviously mate, for they cannot have both priestcraft and truth can they; but do not get your knickers in a twist about that son; for there are better places to be thrown out of are there not; and don’t we know it eh. Anyway, what the hell do you want to go in there for anyway? Go and chat with them down at the Rose and Crown instead – they are more sensible too.


“I came from the father and have come into this world. Now I am leaving the world again and going to the father” !


Yeah, don’t we all eh mate; tis like the magic roundabout innit! I wonder why they used to call home, the father – chauvinist gits eh.


“Although the world does not know thee, I know thee,” !


Yeah, but you ain’t alone mate, so do not get a persecution mania eh.


Well, all this gets boring and tedious. If I was of a mind I could take that book apart and put it back together with what should be in it and deleting all that nonsense which was put there and should not be in it. But even then it would not be saying much about one mere half of it all. The other half is not even there at all – distorted or otherwise.

And to think, that this is probably the most read book in the world. No wonder the world is nuts and feels alienated from truth – and each other. Vile damn book; and the worst virus ever to plague the human mind. The Roman emperor (murdering butcher that he was) slung all this nonsense together in 325 ad. Clever eh. Well, not quite clever enough, for there were just sufficient facts in it for all genuine mystics to recognise what they were stealing it from.

Why do mystics exist in this world? Well, you work it out.

Regards, Dick Richardson.





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 2503 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
Dick writes:

>>>>>[3. You mention coffe quite a bit, How much coffee were you
drinking? Were you
using any other stimulants? What were your drinking habits? ] I did
not drink
coffee until I was 36 years of age. But at that time vary rarely. I
used to
drink milk, water or tea. I drink gallons of coffee now – my second
wife started
me on it.<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Very interesting. Did you meet your second wife when you were still
married to the first?

(I am still reading your material but I didn’t want to forget asking
you this question.)

dc
Group: egodeath Message: 2504 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
dick writes:

>>>>[5. Are you aware of endogenous DMT? ] I have read a lot of
things in my time
but cannot remember them all now. I may have done and I may not;
remind me.>>>>>>


Here is a link to read.
http://www.maps.org/forum/2002/msg00039.html



DMT (One of the most potent entheogens, contained in various
visionary plants and combinations of plants, and other related
molecules are naturally found in the brain, that are involved in the
entheogenic process.

Your experiences are related to this.

Study of Entheogens is essential in understanding the way to best
maximize the enlightenment of human beings and to solve real
problems. The more reseach, the more answers.


There is a famous Buddhist story called “the gem in the robe” from
the Saddharma Pundarika, that tells a story of a man’s friend who
secretly sews a rare and valuable gemstone into the sleeve of his
drunken and sleepy freind’s robe. Years later after much toil doing
manual labor, the man was ready to give up life. He happened to see
his old friend who asked him why he was so dirty and unkempt and
obviously poor, but wearing the same robe he had many years before.
The man told him his story of a lifetime of suffering and then the
friend told him, “Didn’t you know about the Gem I sewed into your
sleeve? You could have lived like a king”. He tore open the sleeve
and gave the Gem to the man.”

Entheogenic molecule are like this.

Well you have DMT and other things within you and outide of you,
that is the precious Gem. We all already possess it. Entheogen
research is nothing other then learning about these things inside
our brain on many levels.

Entheogenic experience is the fundamental “mystic” experiences which
is like the hidden gem of enlightenment.

It was always there it usually isn’t recognized. Its like a man who
accidentally injects moldy Rye bread and has a sequence of
experiences such as you describe and begins to try to teach others,
but never realizes that his state was a matter of better living
through chemistry. The chemicals in the brain and entheogenic
substances are closely related or identical to the active
ingredients of major visionary plants. Understanding of this
scientifically, is probably the most important thing people have to
do in the world at this time. Talk therapy and guru chatter lead
nowhere. Pure experience lead everywhere. Without entheogens,
people would not have any idea what thee experiences are. They
would not be able to study them with science. Useful applications
for people would go undiscovered. Mental illnesses would never be
cured.

To deny that the use of Visionary Plants and altered Brain
Chemistry, are in some way different, is foolish I believe.

The Schizophrenic or Manic condition and their many halluncinatory
states, are also a matter of brain chemistry,and on many levels,
but their functional level is very different from people who have
enlightening experiences. It is easy to tell the difference. The
best way to understand these states is through experiencing them.
There are people on all different levels.

Entheogens have already proved themselves to be able to turn average
people on—people with virtually no receptivity—and show them
inner experience, which eventually become the classic religious
experience which then develops further into the understanding of
reality as it is. From there people, become motivated and
receptive. First you have to make them receptive. Entheogens have
already proven that they can trigger profound enough experiences to
make people wake up and take notice of things. Entheogen research
is no different then Dentists researching how to fix imperfect and
infected teeth. It is a practical matter.

People aren’t physically perfect and they are all subject to the
standard problems of old age, illnes and death and the harsh reality
of the world as it is today. People need augmenting. Brain
chemistry needs a boost in the right direction. Who knows what
future mirales will be dicovered in the entheogenic molecule family?

Entheogens are the cure for human boredom and stupidity. Talk
gurutherapy doesn’t cut it. Flowery words mean very little and
prayer, (without the ability of focusing the brain chemistry) and
meditation is weak. Entheogens is the appropriate way for people in
general. The world just doesn’t realize that yet.

So your endogenous DMT hiccuped and you were in space, googling over
the vibes.

lol

dc
Group: egodeath Message: 2505 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
>>>>>Dick Writes:

[6. Since those main experiences, how often if ever did you have
experiences of
that kind later in your life? ]

One does not need to see the same thing twice. <<<<

Are you sure about that? I agree thi to be the case with most
things, but a person can glance up and think they see a moose and
then look again and it is a tree.


>>>>>But after that first one I had regular psychic experiences for
twenty years and they all taught me something different. But the
last event was another big mystical event twenty years after the
first – the consummatum incarnate – as it had been in transcendence
then so too did it become on earth. I never need the same experience
twice.<<<<<<<<<<<<

Okay this is similar to what people say about Entheogen use. But,
if you consider it, don’t you always feel you had already
experienced those thing before, while they are happening to you?

[7. Did you ever have any impairment in your level of functioning in
daily life, that for instance plagues people with mental illness?
(simply a question, not an assumption or insult) ]

No insult taken – thick skinned you know. I have never been either
physically
ill or mentally ill in my life. I am of about average intelligence;
I learn very
quick. I am exceptionally strong (just born that way) much to the
dismay of
bullies. I have never passed out or fainted in my life – and my
constitution is
that of an ox. All my sensory inputs (and other antenna) are working
fine and I
can still chase sixteen your-old’s around the block. I have a very
good sense
of humour (far better than the Germans you know :- ))) and most folk
think I am
good fun to be with. So no problems in my life. All is just fine –
and five
healthy bright kids.<<<<<<<<<<<

OKAY. So then we can rule out insanity ok? LOL

>>>>>>>>>>I have never held beliefs in my life – knowledge of some
things and ignorance of
other is good enough for me. I was asked to become a Bishop in a
church once –
thank you ma’am but no thanks. I have been offered money for helping
people
($6000 once) same again, thank you ma’am but no thanks. Nobody can
buy me and I
am not for sale.

Hope this answers your questions Sir.

Dick.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

May I ask what you do for a living?

dc
Group: egodeath Message: 2506 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: What seekest thou and why?
>>>>1) If a person is seeking something then presumably they do not
have it; for one does not go looking for something which is not
missing. So, could I ask as to what it is they assume or believe
that they are looking for? Please do not say something
like ‘enlightenment’ without defining your terms in a little more
detail.<<<<<<<<<<<<

>>>>>>>>>(2) One would not go to the trouble of looking for
something without a reason
of some kind. So, why do they want whatever it is they are seeking
for?

I think that is the same question you just asked butit is the same
answer above.

(3) What will they (you) do with it if ever they find it?

(4) What do they think or believing that the acquisition of it will
do for them?

(5) One of course can only know something (in the true sense of to
KNOW) from
hindsight. Inference and deduction are not knowledge in the strict
sense. Hence
anything one reads or hears is simply hearsay – one does not know
the experience
of a tree simply by hearing or reading the word ‘tree’. So, if one
is seeking
something on the say-so of hearsay then what makes them assume that
it is really
there at al l- given that human beings can and do at times tell
lies? If that
which they were seeking from hearsay did not actually exist then
they are
wasting a whole lifetime not only by seeking it but also possibly
damaging their
system by the over use of stimulants of one kind or another – or
simply wasting
so much time in meditative practices?

(6) How many seekers on this list have found what they were looking
for?

Many thanks for your anticipated co-operation.

Dick.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

All people want freedom from strife and suffering, illusory or not
is a moot point.

Words are conventions. “Enlightement” is a word based in experience
that both redefines reality and shapes reality. More wordplay
really doesn’t acomplish much. Theory is simply a convention as
well. Hard science is different. They build TVs and Computers and
discover ways to extend life and make life safer from pollution.
That is the tip of the iceberg. That is the real world.

In the olden days they did a lot of talking. Many books, many
theorie and prayers, but still no end to suffering in sight.
religions, teacher etc., all come and go. But millimeter by
millimeter there is something changing and growing in human
knowledge. Time to extend that study into the inner realm as well.
In the realm of words, old, primitive terms like “enlightenment,”
are way too vague.


Those are my short answers.

dc
Group: egodeath Message: 2507 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Fw: Quotes and responses
The mystic, is plagued by the thought they are special. They
actually take offense if it is suggested that these experiences they
talk about are really commonplace amonst entheogen users and they
cringe at the thought all people could experience them simply by
eating a plant. hey also react negatively to the idea that other
people could experience so easily, what they thought was really
unique to them.

Take a while and think on it that okay?

dc

— In egodeath@yahoogroups.com, “Dick Richardson” <dick@p…> wrote:
>
> —– Original Message —–
> From: Dick Richardson
> To: gnosis284
> Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2003 8:26 AM
> Subject: Quotes and responses
>
>
>
> A few quotes from the Christians book along with comments from a
modern day mystic. (according to academic Neurology mystics are
people who are suffering from Rapid Brain Deterioration – so come to
your own conclusions).
>
>
> ” I tell you this: a rich man will find it hard to enter the
kingdom of heaven”.
>
>
> Why? Easy, because they have too much of the wrong kind of stuff
to think about. A person wealthy in worldly goodies will invariably
find that all their time is taken up with administrating their
wealth; thinking about putting it to work, keeping it, adding to it,
and thinking about what to do with it. When is their mind ever free
to think about life itself? Let alone relaxing sufficiently to feel
its naked essential quality. That is why. When do they get time to
simply grab the day and go with the flow? A camel would indeed float
through the eye of a needle sooner. The irony is that a wealthy
person who does not have to worry about feeding their kids and
cleaning out toilets every day truly is in the best position to
relax and go with the flow. But they do not. So tough luck. I do not
envy them.
>
>
> “You are the light of the world”!
>
>
> Well, I think I have said enough about that already in this book.
I would just add – ‘know your self’.
>
>
> “The lamp of your body is the eye”!
>
>
> The real you is that part which sees and knows – the observer of
the observed.
>
>
> “Put away anxious thought about food and drink”!
>
>
> You will probably get enough food to eat and drink, and the things
which you need here anyway. So do not spend all your time thinking
about them and storing it all away. Think of other things and
observe life. If you do happen to starve, which is unlikely in a
half way decent society, then you will no longer be anxious about
food and drink anyway. There are more important things than simply
staying alive for a long time.
>
>
> “Always treat others as you would like them to treat you” !
>
>
> Not the best way of putting it sunshine – Always treat others the
way in which you would like them to treat your children. For you
love and care for your children more than you do yourself.
>
>
> “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” !
>
>
> Mystics are here to hack down the weeds of destruction and ego’s.
>
>
> “You will hear and hear, but never understand; you will look and
look, but never see”!
>
>
> You cannot live life by proxy; and you cannot give experience,
knowledge and understanding away. You have to know and understand
for your self. The physical ears and eyes will never reveal it.
>
>
> “The harvest is the end of time – the reapers are angels”!
>
>
> You cannot know the eternal realm and reap that fruit until time
stops moving; and when you are there you will not be a physical
entity – but pure primordial mind.
>
>
> “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure buried in a field”!
>
>
> Yeah, sure is; buried deep below all other fields of emanation
which are brought forth from the point of no duration. Do not go
looking in your cabbage patch however.
>
>
> “Can you not see that that which goes into the mouth passes into
the stomach and is discharged into the drain: but that which comes
out of the mouth has its origins in the heart”!
>
>
> Yup, sure does – and it reveals the colour of it too.
>
>
> “If anyone wants to follow me then he must leave self behind”!
>
>
> Well, you cannot say it any clearer than that can you. And I have
been saying the same thing for forty years and throughout this book.
>
>
> “If any man will let himself be lost he will find his true Self” !
>
>
> And so it is. Why could they not understand it then; tis plain
enough – get lost to get found. Annihilation does a proper job of
it. Mind you, you cannot do it by choice so do not try it. But you
can put yourself in the way of it happening if you relax at times,
and go with the flow; and put the little ego to bed.
>
>
> “What an unbelieving and perverse generation, how much longer must
I endure you”!
>
>
> I know the feeling chum; but do not break into a sweat about it;
for they have not seen what you have seen, and they do not know what
you know – be patient lad. And anyway, you cannot stay here for ever
as you well know. So, go and cool off in the pond mate.
>
>
> “In very truth I tell you, we (mystics) speak of what we know, and
testify to what we have seen, and yet you all (including
neurologists mate) reject our testimony. If you disbelieve me when I
talk about things on earth, how are you to believe when I tell you
things about heaven”!
>
>
> Don’t expect too much of them chum; keep your powder dry son.
>
>
> “You Samaritans (Don’t forget the JW’s mate) worship without
knowing what you worship, while we (mystics) worship what we know” !
>
>
> So what do you expect them to do then mate? They cannot digest
that which they have not eaten old son – so damn well explain it to
them better. If they do not understand then it is YOUR fault, not
theirs.
>
>
> “As the father raises the dead (resurrection from annihilation)
and gives them life, so the son (your true self in paradise) gives
life to men”!
>
>
> Well, you do not give them life old mate, but a little inspiration
to live if you are lucky and can get through to them eh; but don’t
play at the sodding job, get real mate!
>
>
> ” I will not leave you bereft: I am coming back to you” !
>
>
> Yup, that is right. These words are what I termed ‘Synetic
Dialogue’, which means speaking whilst in this world on behalf of
that part of our self which exist in eternity. And your Self will
come back to you when time ends. Ipso Facto.
>
>
> “They will ban you from the synagogue” !
>
>
> Obviously mate, for they cannot have both priestcraft and truth
can they; but do not get your knickers in a twist about that son;
for there are better places to be thrown out of are there not; and
don’t we know it eh. Anyway, what the hell do you want to go in
there for anyway? Go and chat with them down at the Rose and Crown
instead – they are more sensible too.
>
>
> “I came from the father and have come into this world. Now I am
leaving the world again and going to the father” !
>
>
> Yeah, don’t we all eh mate; tis like the magic roundabout innit! I
wonder why they used to call home, the father – chauvinist gits eh.
>
>
> “Although the world does not know thee, I know thee,” !
>
>
> Yeah, but you ain’t alone mate, so do not get a persecution mania
eh.
>
>
> Well, all this gets boring and tedious. If I was of a mind I could
take that book apart and put it back together with what should be in
it and deleting all that nonsense which was put there and should not
be in it. But even then it would not be saying much about one mere
half of it all. The other half is not even there at all – distorted
or otherwise.
>
> And to think, that this is probably the most read book in the
world. No wonder the world is nuts and feels alienated from truth –
and each other. Vile damn book; and the worst virus ever to plague
the human mind. The Roman emperor (murdering butcher that he was)
slung all this nonsense together in 325 ad. Clever eh. Well, not
quite clever enough, for there were just sufficient facts in it for
all genuine mystics to recognise what they were stealing it from.
>
> Why do mystics exist in this world? Well, you work it out.
>
> Regards, Dick Richardson.
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 2508 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Equivalence of different mystic camps and allegories
Even so wise as Gnosis magazine misses that point when striving to make
absurdly fine divisions between camps of Jewish mysticism, thus tending back
toward literalism; whether you frame the mystic-state allegory in terms of
“union with God” or “ascending to a vision of God”, that totally amounts to
the same equivalent thing; either way, we have the same essential thing:
allegorical description of the intense mystic altered state.

Without recognizing that essence, scholars instead make themselves look busy
and perceptive by introducing *irrelevant* artificial boundaries and groupings
within e.g. Jewish mysticism — all premised on the incorrect fundamental
assumption that mystic experiencing was rare and difficult to induce. Yes
there may be degrees of mysticism, but mystic allegory is mystic allegory,
whether “seeing God’s throne” or “merging with God”; whether “going to heaven”
or “avoiding rebirth” — the basic meaning is the same.

All the various camps and allegory systems were involved in psychoactive
sacraments providing full and rich abundance of mystic experiencing, so it is
a complete misunderstanding to think of the camps as being significantly or
substantially different. They all had the same mystic altered state available
on tap, in spades, and these allegory systems are just different ways of
expressing the same basic type of experiential insights and the same kind of
spiritual adventures.


— Michael Hoffman
http://www.egodeath.com — simple theory of the ego-death and rebirth
experience
Group: egodeath Message: 2509 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Unlocking the Bible Codes – Found Codes
The only “codes” of prophecy in the scriptures are humorous allegory mixtures
allusing to the domains of the intense mystic altered state and the domain of
socio-political domain, using kingdoms and kingships as allegory for ego death
and rebirth experiences. *That* is the *true* “hidden code” in the Bible.
Astrology and healing and magic are other included domains of allegory,
involved the same way.


— Michael Hoffman
http://www.egodeath.com — simple theory of the ego-death and rebirth
experience
Group: egodeath Message: 2510 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Another tool to help destroy / is egodeath beneficial to societ
Thought-provoking. Coherent; I have to consider whether Peart actually had or
should have had that in mind when writing the lyrics.


Merkur wrote:
>”Another toy will help destroy
>The elder race of man
>Forget about your silly whim
>It doesn’t fit the plan.” (Rush, 2112)
>
>
>Usually in the beginning of experimenting one holds the view
>that wide-spread use [of LSD]can only but be very helpful to society.
>As one becomes experienced it’s quite clear what egodath-experiencing
>is about: the shift to no control/cosmic-determinism-revealation.
>
>So, “another toy” is the tripper which gets turned on and is going
>to turn on others, thereby destroying the “elder race of man” (which
>belives in free will). The “silly whim” of the tripper is his plan of
>being able to make the world better (by using LSD).
>”It does’nt fit the plan” confirms the mistake of the tripper to think
>like he does (in the beginning).
Group: egodeath Message: 2511 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: The very late invention of the Cross
Takes a little while to load:
http://hometown.aol.com/havrylak/x-symbols.doc

Visual comparison of the 3rd century BCE Achaean League coin “Chi-Alpha”
symbol with two 4th century CE “Chi-Rho” symbols:
http://www.aug.edu/augusta/iconography/crucifixion.html


The reason the cross was not used is because Christianity wasn’t dreamed up
until well after the end of antiquity in 476. All “early” writings are much
later forgeries, back-projected by many centuries. All evidence we have is
literary, and that is forged and back-dated. The origins of Christianity lie
in the Medieval or Renaissance era, which happened only shortly after the fall
of Rome. The center of gravity and origin of Christianity as a canonical
formal institution is the Medieval and Renaissance era, *not* late antiquity
(50 BC–476 CE).

The canon was established around the year we call 1525, not 180. All the
battle between gnostics and orthodoxy actually occurred prior to and during
the Reformation, and was falsely back-projected into Jewish and Roman
antiquity, which was then illusorily pushed even further back into the
venerable Past by inserting some number of invented centuries.


The New Chronology: The Dark Ages Didn’t Exist — time falsification, Edwin
Johnson, Heribert Illig, Uwe Topper, Hans-Ulrich Niemitz, Christoph Marx, Jean
Hardouin, Wilhelm Kammeier
http://www.egodeath.com/newchronology.htm

Edwin Johnson, A Radical Advocate of Chronology Criticism — Uwe Topper on
Edwin Johnson
http://www.egodeath.com/uwetopperonedwinjohnson.htm

Study Version of Edwin Johnson’s “The Pauline Epistles – Re-Studied and
Explained”, 1894 — Reformatted copy for increased comprehensibility by
Michael Hoffman Oct. 8, 2003. Proposes that the years 700-1400 didn’t exist,
and that Christianity, the “early” Christian texts, Paul, the Gospels, the
Church Fathers, the Dark Ages, and the Middle Ages were literary inventions
fabricated in competing monasteries around 1500.
http://www.egodeath.com/edwinjohnsonpaulineepistles.htm

— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 2512 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Cosmic escape: read mysticism allegorically/descriptively, not lite
“Cosmic escape” is nothing but a humorous mystic-state allegory or
description, alluding to the desire to escape from the control-loss
instability entailed in perceiving frozen block-universe determinism.
Literalism is most rampant in interpreting mystic allegory and taking it
literally, then dividing up mystics into camps based on what they “believe”,
when in actuality, they don’t believe any of the allegory *literally*; it’s
all just equivalent reportive description of the same class and mode of
experiencing.


— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 2513 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: On-topic debate on ego death
I can’t reply now, so must just confirm for others’ posting:


>So, OK then, let us talk about ego death – in so far as this list
>allows one to talk of it then. Is ego death which is not drug
>induced allowed on this list?


Yes. Serious on-topic contributions are much valued, regardless of position.
I am very pro-debate, unlike common spiritual discussion groups. I get more
out of postings I disagree with than most simple agreement.


>Mystics should keep their mouth shut for at least twenty years after
>their first big experience – for there is more dear Horatio; and a
>little learning can be a dangerous thing if one assumes that it is
>all the learning there exists to be done.


That’s terrible needless prohibition. People must choose between that view
and mine: I say, study and have mystic experiencing immediately and
ergonomically in full, and speak richly of it immediately without hindrance.
Choose whose paradigm you listen to — that which is premised on difficulty
and long waiting, or ease and immediacy on tap. There is no substantial
reason to wait, delay, and silence oneself.

If you like the paradigm of difficulty, waiting, and long silence, you will
get your wish for a version of mysticism that pushes away mysticism into a
hard-to-attain realm. I define and choose the theory of immediate
lightning-path mysticism without delay. The slow path is actually just an
excuse for no path; that is, for poor effectiveness.


— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath Message: 2514 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Michael Hoffman, advocate of cosmic escape through nature mysti
>Try reading the book about him written by a member of his own family, the
book is called – The Genuine Fraud.


Some reading:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Genuine+Fake+Watts+moni
ca

The only thing unbalanced with Watts was that he merely put in a footnote his
point that mystics commonly reject “personal free will”. My work largely
corrects and realigns Watts’.


— Michael Hoffman
http://www.egodeath.com — simple theory of the ego-death and rebirth
experience. The essence, paradigm, origin, and fountainhead of religion is
the use of visionary plants to routinely trigger the intense mystic altered
state, producing loose cognitive association binding, which then produces an
experience of frozen block-universe determinism with a single, pre-existing,
ever-existing future. The return of the ordinary state of consciousness is
allegorized as a transcendence of Necessity or cosmic determinism. Myth
describes this mystic-state experience. Initiation is classically a series of
some 8 visionary-plant sessions, interspersed with study of perennial
philosophy. Most religion is a distortion, corruption, literalization, and
cooptation of this standard initiation system.
Group: egodeath Message: 2515 From: Dick Richardson Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
Dear DC,

It would be nice of course if you were to tell me your name, you know mine, but I do of course realise that some folk are a little shy of becoming identified – I often wonder why; I have nothing to hide, but there you go. First I should thank you for going to all the trouble of writing all those emails, that of course is appreciated irrespective as to whether I give credence to many of the things which you claim therein.

To some extent of course you have me over a barrel in the sense that I cannot talk from the experience of hindsight when it comes to drugs or even trying or wanting to induce metaphysical experiences – I did not even know they existed to be found when I found them; and I was looking for nothing other than the answers to questions (the perennial questions) which thinking people have always asked themselves – and that was the result of it – not what I had eaten but the thought process life-style and questioning things – ‘ask and you will receive’. (read the whole book and albeit that it is an old one) – the new one is called ‘Psychognosis and the Dignity of Man’. It will be on-line shortly at a website called Psychognosis.net

You go on to ask many more questions. I have no objections to answering all your question – for I have been doing that for forty years all over the world. But before I do so I would like to ask you just a few more.

The first one is this.. (1). What makes you assume that I feel that I am special when everything which I write in my book says otherwise? I am no different from anybody else – nicer than some and not as nice as others: brighter than some and not as bright as others, so on and so forth. If what one says is going to be ignored then there is no point in human communication. But I have found over the last forty years that there is much point and effectiveness in human communication. Many people (some well known in the world) have even stopped trying to kill themselves after reading my books and poems – and yes, I too was gobsmacked when they told me that at first. So the question is this.. Given that kind of experience is so common (as you claim) then why are they not all writing about it. Genuine mystics try to put themselves out of business by trying to give it all away, and albeit only by words; for I cannot give them the experience and the effects. But it seems that YOU can – so go ahead and give it to them – and starting with all the criminals and undesirables.

(2). Given that it is the current paradigm that all mystics are suffering from a mental problem and rapid brain deterioration then why would people want to induce it anyway?

(3) For what effect would they want to induce it? It has not changed me or my lifestyle one jot – nor even my personality. True, it has revealed things which I did not know existed, and hence my thinking about the nature of reality; but it has not changed me – I am still the same simple cockney kid that I was during the war; I loved life then and I do now. I loved science and the physical world then, and I still do. I did not fear death then and I still do not. I never worried about myself then and I still don’t. I could go on like this for a long time – but you get my gist eh. It has not changed me or improved my life style at all. True, I seemed to have been able to help others with it – but I always tried to help people anyway if I could. So, what is the point of it and why go in search of it? I did not ask for it; I did not want it; I did not search for it – it just happened along; just like a cold or a toothache does. Where is the big deal that they all rave about? Why are they all in search of it?

(4) All governments want a better society, better people, smarter people, more peaceful people. So why is your movement not telling governments to put this stuff in the drinking reservoirs? Would it perhaps be due to governments being in the pocket of business organisations? If so then pop it in the reservoirs yourself.

(5) Personally finding oneself knowing these things whilst living in this world such as it is, is not fun at all. Much of the time I wished that I had never known these things; and life then would be much easier, no heart aches; nothing seen as waste, etc. Mystics weep for humanity – do you people do that too?

(6) Henceforth I have seen the reasons for the questions which you have asked; but not so with some of the new ones. What difference does it make when I met my second wife, for example. Or is this just a friendly chat maybe? Given that this particular experience (the ground of our being – and then the consummatum incarnate event) are so common then why are all you guys not writing about it; and also why bother to question somebody about such a common experience? I miss the point here DC. I never bother to ask people as to what effect seeing the postman delivering mail has done for them; so why are you asking these other questions?

(7) I recall you saying that you worked in some kind of clinic, please tell me more; what exactly is your job and rank within that field? What books have you written and where can they be found? How old are you and where are you from?

(8) How many members of this chat group are there, and how many of them are active participants on it – and do they all agree with everything you say?

I have of course over the years met the type of people (often the meditative types) who say “Oh yes I have experienced all those things”, but when questioning them subtly and in ways which I developed of questioning people who made claims, I discovered that they had not experienced such things at all – false guru’s you see; and I know how to take them apart quite easily. I got called ‘Dick the Guru Buster’ many years ago and the name kind of stuck. I have had them in tears would you believe. I am a nice guy they claim, but I can also be a regular bastard when it comes to folk who mess with peoples minds don’t you know.

But anyway, one more question if may.. (9). What is your life philosophy and what do you want from and for people – and why?

Regards, Dick the Guru Buster – otherwise also know as Merlin of Exmoor, or Sir Richard de Growl Tiger. (and many more :- ))) Oh I have also had a lot of fun over the years due to this.



—– Original Message —–
From: rialcnis2000
To: egodeath@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2003 11:09 AM
Subject: [egodeath] Re: Ego death then, so be it.



Dick writes:



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 2516 From: Dick Richardson Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Michael Hoffman, advocate of cosmic escape through nature mysti
How come you keep using the term ‘of the intense mystic altered state’. as though it were some kind of big deal when one of your colleagues here keeps telling me that it is a common event and not an advanced state at all? Are you people who advocate deliberate sensory enhancement not in some kind of uniform agreement with each other?

Dick.


—– Original Message —–
From: Michael Hoffman
To: egodeath@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2003 3:18 PM
Subject: RE: [egodeath] Michael Hoffman, advocate of cosmic escape through nature mysticism




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 2517 From: Dick Richardson Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Evolving Psychic Archetypes
I quite liked the well documented and recent story of the woman who was lost in a ‘white-out’ (blinding thick snow drifts) during a mountain climb. She survived conditions which the human body does not usually survive. Apart from well below zero temperature and surviving, (I think it was two nights), she had no food or shelter. She knew that she had to walk to a place which offered more chance of being found. During this walking she encountered ‘road blocks’, barriers, in her path. These road blocks were not real, they were visions which looked solid. But when she tried to touch them she realised that they were not really there at all. She had the sense however to realise that something was trying to guide her path (knowledge without the knowing or understanding of how or why). She put these visions down to an objective entity which she called a ‘Guardian Angel’. (by virtue of brain washing; just like the Ferry-Man myth, and which many people do just that; by virtue of their mental conditioning and conventional thinking). Well, it certainly worked however, for she lived to tell the story when in fact she should most certainly not have done according to accepted physics and psychology.


‘Guardian Angeles’ have been well documented and spoken of since the year dot in human terms on earth. The consensus belief however is that they are some kind of objective ‘Christian type god-creature’ or its ‘subordinate’ out there in physical space and time. Not so. Before they make assumptions as to what these things really are then it would be better to come to learn a little more about the deeper nature of oneself and our various connected inner parts and the very mysterious fields of inner energy. Not only can these fields of energy be directly known and experienced by being IN them; but it would seem that some, albeit a very few, do have some kind of potential to tap into these energy fields at times by their own effort and will. An interesting point in this case is the ‘road barrier’ – for that is a modern day implement. Cave men did not see road barriers did they; hence archetypes are still being formed within the psyche; ones that you and I will understand today in a modern world. Hence the Soul evolves. As the human mind evolves and we become conscious of more things and more connections of things, then so too do the psychic experiences evolve, in order that the topside mind can understand their meaning in some way. But our essential nature (or spirit) does not evolve. It is what it is, and always so.

rwr



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 2518 From: Khem Caigan Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
Dick Richardson wrote:
<SNIPS>
> I have a very good sense of humour (far better than the Germans you
> know :- ))) and most folk think I am good fun to be with. So no
> problems in my life. All is just fine – and five healthy bright kids.

Sie sind ein voreingenommener Haufen von Schlange Fäkalien 😉
Group: egodeath Message: 2519 From: Khem Caigan Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: (no subject)
Dick doth schriebble:
<SNIPS>
> Ker-Riced, talk about human communication – it has not lifted
> itself above the mire of mere babble as yet. And some of them
> learn two languages to talk double-babble.

So molte lingue, e Dick è un tumore nato da un mucchio
di feci di topo 😉
Group: egodeath Message: 2520 From: Khem Caigan Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Michael Hoffman, advocate of cosmic escape through nature mysti
Dick doth schriebble:
>
> Try reading the book about him [Watts] written by a
> member of his own family, the book is called – The Genuine Fraud.
> So once again assumption is on the rampage here as I have already
> pointed out. Do some reading friend. Watt’s NEVER KNEW the things
> he was preaching about – and he died trying to find them by way of
> drugs. Moreover, what Watts led people to believe that he knew was
> not even a fraction of what exists to be known and experienced.
> Ipso Facto.

And why would we be interested in a hack-job cobbled together by some
disgruntled nitwit family member capitalizing on the notoriety of Watts
in order to grab a few seconds of the limelight they couldn’t possibly
achieve except by whinging about him? Typical low-class bigot roundhead
gambit, spreading gossip about their betters in a feeble attempt to make
themselves seem more substantial than the straw dogs they’re waving
around.

But, as it happens, there is no book called _The Genuine Fraud_ penned
by some disgruntled nitwit family relation of Alan Watts.

It’s just more of Dick’s crack-brain illiterate ad hominem having a
spot of fun with a biography written by one of Alan’s dearest friends
and supporters, Monica Furlong:

Genuine fake : a biography of Alan Watts
London : Unwin Paperbacks, 1986.
by Monica Furlong
http://makeashorterlink.com/?G62525786

Also available as:

Zen Effects : The Life of Alan Watts
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1986.
by Monica Furlong
http://www.skylightpaths.com/books/322.htm

Here’s the blurb from the biography:

“Through his widely popular books and lectures, Alan Watts (1915-1973)
did more to introduce Eastern philosophy and religion to Western minds
than any figure before or since. Watts touched the lives of many. He was
a renegade Zen teacher, an Anglican priest, a lecturer, an academic, an
entertainer, a leader of the San Francisco renaissance, and the author
of more than thirty books, including The Way of Zen, Psychotherapy East
and West and The Spirit of Zen.

Monica Furlong followed Watts’s travels from his birthplace in England
to the San Francisco Bay Area where he ultimately settled, conducting
in-depth interviews with his family, colleagues, and intimate friends,
to provide an analysis of the intellectual, cultural, and deeply
personal influences behind this truly extraordinary life.”

Monica Furlong is an author and journalist living in London. She is the
author of many books, including Merton: A Biography; Therese of Lisieux;
Visions and Longings: Medieval Women Mystics; and Women Pray: Voices
through the Ages, from Many Faiths, Cultures, and Traditions

——====oo0oo====——

Dick often admonishes others to read [hypocritical twit that he is],
but it is clear that Dick has never read Furlong’s _Genuine Fake_.

If he had, he would know that it was Alan himself who originally
coined the phrase “Genuine Fake”, in reference to folks who believe they
are ‘spiritually enlightened’ in some sense, and then for self-serving
purposes deem themselves guides or teachers. Such individuals are very
sincere about what they do, but they are, in effect, delusional, and
they spend their lives going about enlisting other people in that
delusion.

Folks like you, Dick.

——====oo0oo====——

“In classical drama the persona was the megaphone-mouth mask worn for
the open-air theater. And by a curious degradation of words, the word
“person” has come to mean the real individual and when Harry Emerson
Fosdick wrote “How to be a Real Person”, the real title of his book
should have been “How to be a Genuine Fake.”

from:
The Relevance of Oriental Philosophy,
a lecture by Alan Watts
http://members.aol.com/chasklu/religion/private/watts.htm

——====oo0oo====——

It is also clear that Dick has absolutely no compunction about
shamelessly misrepresenting Furlong’s work. All in a good cause,
eh, Dick?

In fact, Monica Furlong was herself an advocate of psychedelics,
as we can see by referring to her obituary in The Guardian:

——====oo0oo====——

Monica Furlong (d.2003 at 72),
Christian writer and feminist,
authored her autobiography:
“Bird of Paradise.”

born January 17 1930;
died January 14 2003

A dedicated writer, feminist and Christian, she threw her considerable
moral authority behind the campaign for women priests

Michael De-la-Noy
Friday January 17, 2003
The Guardian


Monica Furlong, who has died of cancer aged 72, would have achieved
distinction through her writings alone. But she was always on the
lookout for good causes to espouse, and once she had thrown in her lot
with the Movement for the Ordination of Women, and with the aims of
secular feminism in general, she became to many women – and to many men
as well, especially homosexuals – not just a beacon of light, more a
flaming torch.

Like many intellectuals, her life was, in some ways, a protracted
search for truth, accompanied by frequent disillusionment, most notably
with the organized structures of society. In her book With Love To The
Church (1965), she wrote, more in sorrow than in anger, of her
disillusion with the apparent inability of the established Church to
touch the hearts and minds of men and women of goodwill.

Very much a child of her time, she experimented with LSD in her late
30s, and had the distinction of seeing her book Travelling In (1971),
describing the experience, banned from Church of Scotland bookshops.
Aware in later life of the dangers of drugs, she nevertheless always
regarded the drug-taking, together with a Freudian psychoanalysis in her
early 50s, as a vital part of her psychological and spiritual growth.

Obituary
Monica Furlong: 1930-2003
An appreciation
http://www.stammering.org/mfurlong.html

——====oo0oo====——

No one is going to formulate anything like an educated opinion
about Watts by way of mere hearsay, regardless.

I at least knew the man as a friend, face-to-face, *and* I have
read his work, and doubt that you can say the same.

Be that as it may, you said that “the hippie movement was originally
founded by such *frauds*”, which is a plural construction, and it will
be rather amusing to see you attempt to dispatch Huxley & Heard & Wilson
using the same chop-logic ( ‘ipso facto’? ) and ad hominem slurs you
employed on Alan. If you dare.

You’ve made your bed, Dick, and you ought at least to show enough
courage and integrity to lie in it. But I doubt very much that you will,
because, hypocritical cowardly yobbo swine that you are, you *have* no
courage or integrity.


Cors in Manu Domine,


~ Khem Caigan
<Khem@…>
http://profiles.yahoo.com/khemcaigan

——====oo0oo====——

How to be a genuine fake

A double-bind game is a game with self-contradictory rules, a game
doomed to perpetual self-frustration – like trying to invent a
perpetual-motion machine in terms of Newtonian mechanics, or trying to
trisect any given angle with a straight-edge and compass. The social
double-bind game can be phrased in several ways:

The first rule of this game is that it is not a game.
Everybody must play.
You must love us.
You must go on living.
Be yourself, but play a consistent and acceptable role.
Control yourself and be natural.
Try to be sincere.

Essentially, this game is a demand for spontaneous behaviour of certain
kinds.

Living, loving, being natural or sincere – all these are spontaneous
forms of behaviour: they happen “of themselves” like digesting food or
growing hair. As soon as they are forced they acquire that unnatural,
contrived, and phony atmosphere which everyone deplores – weak and
scent-less like forced flowers and tasteless like forced fruit. Life and
love generate effort, but effort will not generate them.

Faith – in life, in other people, and in oneself – is the attitude of
allowing the spontaneous to BE spontaneous, in its own way and in its
own time. This is, of course, risky because life and other people do not
always respond to faith as we might wish. Faith is always a gamble
because life itself is a gambling game with what must appear, in the
hiding aspect of the game, to be colossal stakes. But to take the gamble
out of the game, to try to make winning a dead certainty, is to achieve
a certainty which is indeed dead.

The alternative to a community based on mutual trust is a totalitarian
police-state, a community in which spontaneity is virtually forbidden.

from
The Book: On the taboo against knowing who you are,
by Alan Watts.

The Life and Work of Alan Watts
http://www.saybrook.edu/app/lg/cr3075.html

The Joyous Cosmology
http://www.lycaeum.org/books/transcribed.shtml
Group: egodeath Message: 2521 From: Dick Richardson Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Fw: Advocates of Mind altering drugs.
—– Original Message —–
From: Dick Richardson
To: gnosis284
Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2003 6:05 PM
Subject: Advocates of Mind altering drugs.


DC claims.. [All people want freedom from strife and suffering, illusory or not
is a moot point. ] (Whilst elsewhere asserting that mind altering drugs effect this end result)

It is of course (I imagine anyway, for I cannot know) such that it would be nice to have food fall off tree’s into our mouth; to never have to go to the toilet or to waste time washing; or doing the washing up and changing nappies (dypers) or having to go to work to earn cash to eat and pay the rent etc. It would be nice not to have to see ones friends and family suffering from colds, flue, and things much worse even such as wars an earthquakes etc. But, given that the physical world is not a complete free ride for us then these things are not insurmountable problems – and it does not last for ever after all; so a little graft and a little worry at times is no big deal in the vast complex scheme of things.


Now, when one reads anything which beings ‘All People’ one instantly thinks – Oh Ker-Riced, here we go again. It is blatantly obvious from reading history that a number of philosophies and religions, psychological practices and rituals etc, have been set up in the claim of relieving human pain and suffering. None of them has ever worked – look at the world around you. Some knew this enterprise was useless so they promised better things in the next world – providing you behaved yourself in this one and drop your coins in their collection box.


The latest of these crazes they say is enlightenment by way of drugs ‘The god within’ drugs. Moreover, they claim that they are far more effective for inducing the profound transcendent mystic experience than is that of spontaneous mystical experiences. However, and irrespective of any possible legitimacy of the claim or otherwise – so what if it did? Mystical experience (even the deepest and most profound kind) do not alleviate human pain and suffering, and social discontent and arguments. So, why even chance zapping your mind out and damaging your health for an effect which is not going to eliminate the problem for which they assume they are seeking it that way?


It is indeed true that some human beings have been taking drugs for spiritual experience since time out of mind. But what major social effect has it had for the better? We still go to war; they still want what the other bloke has got; they still rape and kill, pillage and plunder. Just assuming that either by way of taking drugs, or by whatever other unsolicited triggers cause this shift of conscious existence, that everybody had the same experience tonight. Would it prevent human suffering and pain? Of course not.

True, it may well change some of their ideas and feelings about life; but it would not take away the struggle of human existence, pain, natural daily fears and worries, responsibilities, heartaches, and illness and death. So, why the big deal with regard to the assertion that drugs are the way to illumination and a spiritual life on earth (whatever that is supposed to mean in their terms)? Altered states of conscious will not stop the physical world being what the physical word is and as to how it works. There is no value in substituting one bum religion with another one. Why are not all the drug scene folk making a better world for us in their new found enlightenment – or are they simply enjoying it in private – spirituality did they say????


Dick Richardson






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Group: egodeath Message: 2522 From: Dick Richardson Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Michael Hoffman, advocate of cosmic escape through nature mysti
Irrespective as to who wrote the book and why (and fraud/fake it is all the same – and a long time ago since I read it) one also knows from the hindsight of listening to him (and all his tapes which I have also listened to; as well as reading three or four of his books years ago – The Wisdom of Insecurity – one which if recall the title was about Happiness or the search for; and a few others) that the things he was making believe to know (from Zen Buddhism – and presumably from life experience itself) did not correlate with what is learned in the transcendent mystical experience which he was advocating finding. He was a false guru.

If you or I talk about something which we know from experience then fine, talk about it. But if you or I talk about something which we have not known (and yet leading people to believe that we have known) then that is a false guru chum. And he died looking for it with drugs; as many of them have done and are still doing on a daily basis. Were not the Lake district poets (among many others) all familiar with all these problems years ago.

All your childish insults by the way roll off like water off a ducks back son – at least a couple of people here are presenting an argument (worth listening to and arguing with) without the childish gibbering which comes from your emails. Try growing up a little eh – especially from one who, we can only presume, has found enlightenment (or whatever you want to call it) by dabbling in drugs. Don’t change me son, go change the world eh. Start with yourself. And if you think writing in German to a guy that does not speak it is funny then that proves my point eh. Are you trying to make the others laugh? Are they laughing chum? Tis pathetic my dear Sir. Try doing something useful and telling me about the positive social effect of taking drugs as you see it; which presumably you also advocate. I listen to people, but not rude sods like you who think they are better than anyone else because they speak two or ten languages; and or who does not agree with them from evidence of past experience. But, no, I am not the person to convince – the world is. Are they listening to you – and with that attitude of yours? Quit the literary and academic scene and tell me about transcendence Mr.

Dick.

—– Original Message —–
From: Khem Caigan
To: Egodeath Group
Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2003 5:34 PM
Subject: Re: [egodeath] Michael Hoffman, advocate of cosmic escape through nature mysticism




Dick doth schriebble:



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 2523 From: wrmspirit Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: (no subject)
When I, you and/or me, become made into something and/or someone that must
fight something else in an attempt to destroy it, then I, you and/or me, become
nothing more than the continuation of the structure of religion, which taught
discrimination, fear, and destruction.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 2524 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Michael Hoffman, advocate of cosmic escape through nature mysti
How come you keep using the term ‘of the intense mystic altered
state’. as
though it were some kind of big deal when one of your colleagues
here keeps
telling me that it is a common event and not an advanced state at
all? Are you
people who advocate deliberate sensory enhancement not in some kind
of uniform
agreement with each other?

Dick.<<<<<<<<<<<

The thing is you are trying to nail words down into a fixed context.

Intense Mytic states are ‘rare’ compared to the masses state of day
to day life.

Take a handful of serious entheogenically-minded young people for
instance and intense mystic states become commonplace. Even among
entheogens user who are not properly prepared, they tend to try to
block out their intense mystic states out of fear or ego resistence.

The descriptions you posted of your intense mystic states are very
much the same as early Entheogen use. You do not know what
triggered it, while a Entheogen user will usually know that it arose
from changes in chemistry, that opened those door to a different
perception.

Let me say again, when I read your experiences, it sounds virtually
identical to a mild to decent dose of a entheogen taken by a person
who was not yet aware of what was going to be happening.


This should ring a bell for you. YOUR brain contains the endogenous
DMT and science doesn’t yet know what all else or all the mechnisms
involved. Something triggered that experience in you, that are
identical in style and report, to common entheogenic
experience……again this should make that idea lightbulb, light up
above your head.

Old Zen Proverb. If you see the horns of a bull behind the fence
you know there is a bull behind the fence. (no one is holding up
horns to trick you.)


It is not fully understood scientifically, YET, by any means, but
experientially, it is understood by people who were able to pursue
personal research.


dc
Group: egodeath Message: 2525 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
Dick writes:

>>>>>The first one is this.. (1). What makes you assume that I feel
that I am special when everything which I write in my book says
otherwise? <<<<<<<<<<<<<



You aren’t the first and you won’t be the last person,
preaching “spiritual equality” of people, while at the same time poo
pooing entheogens. You are also not the first or last person to try
to get other people to share your experience. You are not the first
or the last person to imagine that you are able to impart knowledge
to people. The fact is, “people.” can only learn by actual
experience, otherwise all there is left is dogma and the people’s
interpretation of that dogma.

Put a hundred, non-experienced people in an environment and teach
them all the basics of meditation and gnosis. To one half of the
people tell them anything you want. Teach the other half of them
the most impotant pointers about entheogenic experience then give
that half of them a good dose of a strong enthegen once every two
weeks. Wait a month. Then interview the people about the
experiences they had. The experiences will differ by such a great
magnitude, that the 50 person control group will be hardly effected
at all, while the entheogenic group will be reporting incredible
revelations about life and generally be in joyful awe.

dc
Group: egodeath Message: 2526 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
It would be nice of course if you were to tell me your name, you
know mine>>>>>>

My name is David Cole. I always just sign “dc.” My entheogen
usage was in the mid to late 60’s. I no longer work in the psych
field, I got out of that 5 years ago, after 18 years of being in the
trenches. I have a master degree in psych and did experimental
work, years ago with holography and laser optics, when that was a
brand new thing. I liked the paradigm. Today I do many things
including 3D animation art. I run a computer business. I am 56 years
old. For a few decades I was an involved buddhist, until I decided
it was futile to expect the masses of people to make any great
gains, without having had the entheogenic experience. Now I am
still a Buddhsit but most Buddhist would think I am a loose cannon
preaching “drug use.”

I raised kids etc.

During my experiences I recapitulated the past present and future
and saw the nature of things using entheogens and Buddhist-style
meditation. I have spent a great deal of time, in the study of
behavior and people, for the sake of making correlations between
religious experience and entheogenic experience and High-Buddhism,
Life-State theory. I am an expert in Buddhist mandala imagery and
Indian, Chinese and Japanese mythology and it’s far off origins in
entheogenic experience and the forces that imprint people or
deprogram them. I study receptivity and brain washing and cosmic
experience and try to keep it objective. I know that people tend to
literalize things and miss the underlying meaning of the ancient
documentation as well as there own imature experiences. I see how
religions grow, fail and decay. I see how stupid people are. I’ve
seen the depths of human misery and worked with most every
imaginable population—grotesque pinheads in hell to drooling
Savior of the world.

Blah blah blah…..

As a Kid I dreamed of putting LSD in the water supply. Too bad I was
raised too good a boy, so easy swayed by sentimentality and human
foibles to do such a brash thing.

We’d need a regular army of fanatics to pull that one off and I
don’t have the fanatic sensibilites (nor the lab equiptment) but I
wouldn’t just dismiss the idea as a movie script.

lol


dc
Group: egodeath Message: 2527 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
This seems appropriate to post in this conversation:

“Those who practice merely with mouth,
Talk much, seem to know more teachings,
When times come for passing away,
To the space are thrown their preaching’s.
When the clear light naturally shines,
It is cloaked by blindness of sin.
The chance to see the Dharmakaya,
At death is lost through one’s confusion.
Even though one spends his life
In learning holy scripture,
It helps not at the moment
When mind takes its departure.
And those yogis have not sufficient meditation
Mistake psychic light as sacred illumination,
Cannot unify the light of mother and of son,
They’re still in danger of rebirth in lower station.
When your body is rightly posed,
Mind absorbed in meditation,
You feel that here is no more mind,
Yet it’s only concentration.
Like starling fly unto the vast, empty sky,
Awareness as pure flower, bright lamp shining,
Though, it is void, transparent and vivid,
Yet it’s only a Dhyana feeling.
He who is with these good foundations
Penetrates Truth with contemplation,
And prays earnestly to the Three Gems
The non-ego wisdom he will win.
With the life rope of deep concentration
With the power of kindness and compassion,
With altruistic vow of Bodhi-heart,
He can directly get the clear vision,
The Truth of the Great Enlightened Path.
Nothing can be seen yet seen all things,
He sees how wrong were the fears and hopes,
All were in his own mind yet nothing.
He reaches the pure land without arrival,
Sees the Dharmakaya without seeing.
Without effort naturally sees all things,
Dear son, in your mind keep all my sayings.”

Milerepa 1052 – 1135 ad.
Group: egodeath Message: 2528 From: toosirius666 Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Jack Herer and James Arthur Cannabis Cup Nov. 20th 2003
Jack Herer and James Arthur Cannabis Cup Nov. 20th 2003

LIVE From Amsterdam Cannabis Cup (This year it is themed as the
Conspiracy Cup). Jack Herer is being inducted into the Counter
Culture Hall of Fame (He also received earlier this year the “NORML
lifetime achievement award”) he was awarded “Man of The Century” from
High Times Magazine for uncovering the greatest conspiracy of all
time (The Conspiracy against Hemp/Marijuana) in Dec 1999. Jack herer
has been working with James Arthur on a new beek entitled ” “The Most
High, Plants of The Gods, an Exploration into The End Of The World ,
As You Know It.” Check out the links below.


Amsterdam Cannabis Cup
http://www.420tours.com/sched2003.html

http://www.jackherer.com
http://www.jamesarthur.net
Group: egodeath Message: 2529 From: Khem Caigan Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: Michael Hoffman, advocate of cosmic escape through nature mysti
Dick doth schriebble:
>
> Irrespective as to who wrote the book and why…
<SNIPS>

Not so fast, idiot ~

*You* were the one who jumped in here with guns blazing, spewing
your self-serving lies, innuendo, groundless assertions and filth
about Alan and Monica and matters you know nothing of.

On the other hand, I have supplied the list with the facts of the
matter, and make no apologies for my unconcealed disdain of your
cowardice in attacking friends of mine who are not here to answer
for themselves. Their service to the world is well known, however,
and safely beyond the impeachment of stunted cretins like yourself.

And of course you are completely unable to address any of the
points I raised, indulging instead in more of your delusional
waffling spew.

On a lighter note, here’s a link to one of the seminal works of
psychedelic literature, written by one of Dick’s “frauds”(sic):

Aldous Huxley ~ _The Doors of Perception_.
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/doors.htm


Cors in Manu Domine,


~ Khem Caigan
<Khem@…>
http://profiles.yahoo.com/khemcaigan
Group: egodeath Message: 2531 From: Dick Richardson Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
OK David,

Thank you for the information and fill in. Two last questions if I may before leaving.

(1) Given that you claim to have encountered (by drugs) the things of which I talk, viz. the realisation of Self beyond the event of Annihilation, and into the Resurrection of the Eternal mode of Being – and also the event which I call the Consummatum Incarnate, then how do you square this with Buddhism (to which you belong) in which most of its sects seem to preach that there is no real Self in the system – No real observer of the observed ?

1.. Having heard what you have to say I would now like to move on to read at least one hundred documented accounts of experiences which have been induced which at least equal that event. So, could you tell me where these reports can be found please. I have given you addresses which contain at least 10,000 accounts of modern day spontaneous experiences for analysis – and there are of course far more in print; but for one place to contain over 6000 is a good starting point – the AHRC as mentioned elsewhere. Many thanks.
Dick.



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 2532 From: mindexpand2001 Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: why all the arguing?
i cant believe all this arguing.what’s going on?anyway,i agree with
dick that drug-free mystical experiences are preferable-though not
necessarily better-but i myself have had a drug-induced mystical
experience-or at least i think that it was.but guess what?i am really
going to rock the boat here,i am a christian!i was obsessed by
hallucinogens for years,but then i had a realization-and a
few “devilish” trips,where i actually sincerely prayed,because at
that time i KNEW that there is a God(because of the “godlessness”
quality of the trip-,a realization that maybe,just maybe that the
authors of the bible were just telling the TRUTH.i mean,dick,is your
name really dick?-michael,is your name really micheal?etc.etc.etc.get
my point?and anyway,i only have to ask myself if what i am reading in
the bible is true,and i have to say YES,eg.thou shalt not steal-i
KNOW it is wrong to steal(that is just a simple example.)btw dick,are
you in somerset?i am in wrexham,n.wales-in case you were
wondering.you never know ,we might meet some day!
bye now,and come on people,let’s stick to the subject,eh?i was
hoping to find a site where i could share/compare experiences,and
maybe explain them,from different
perspectives,eg.jung,leary,spirtually,cognitively,etc.
Group: egodeath Message: 2533 From: Dick Richardson Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: why all the arguing?
Dear Mindexpand,

Having read your experience I can vouchsafe that it is a genuine experience in so far as one can only measure such things with ones own experience and having read many thousands of others over the last forty years. You have to ask yourself if the experience was meaningful to you and if it revealed some kind of insight to you which makes your life more meaningful and your place in the scheme of things – the dance between the inner you and the whole of creation. It read and sounded a very genuine experience to me – and the first part of it was virtually identical to my own. The object, as we discovered some time ago was to now potentiate the experience and let it continue to work on you. The opposite is to depotentiate it and let it stagnate. Acccept it for what it was and what it revealed and let it work on you – albeit subconsciously.

Yes, I know Wrexham and had quite a few good Taffy friends. I live near the village of Crowcombe (near Taunton) West Somerset; which is situated in the valley between the Quantock Hills and Exmoor.

A list which you can try is ‘eheshare’ (pump it into google search) where they share experiences. I originally set that forum up some years ago for the owner of the Exceptional Human Experience Network. I have not been on it for a long time but funnily enough I did pop back a few days ago to see what was going on. You could also join the Alister Hardy Research Centre, who although based in Oxford have now sent their archives to Wales. You can find them on the web. I used to run live discussion meetings for them – and they are a bit Christian oriented (well some of them anyway); but they have all sorts – the main thing is Mystical experiences; and there are also many academics there as well as house-wives; and a couple of rank moronic idiots like me.

If ever you come down to Somerset then make mine a Pint of Real Ale. OK :- )

As for the arguing then; until such time that I have reams of proof that messing with drugs is safe and beneficial on a large social scale for human evolution then I only have the thousands of reports which we get every day of drug abuse, social disorder, crime, and quite a few suicides or death by virtue of it. I will want a lot of convincing that it is both safe and beneficial to humanity – as of yet I do not have that proof. I want to read of many of their experiences and the long term outcome of its effects. At least I am open to that. Unlike some of the comments which I have seen here saying that natural experiences are virtually junk in comparison. Natural mystical experience does work and has beneficial effects on the recipients – prove to me that drugs do the same – I am all ears for learning true facts based on much data of many people.

Best wishes, Dick Richardson.
—– Original Message —–
From: mindexpand2001
To: egodeath@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, November 14, 2003 10:52 AM
Subject: [egodeath] why all the arguing?


i cant believe all this arguing.what’s going on?anyway,i agree with
dick that drug-free mystical experiences are preferable-though not
necessarily better-but i myself have had a drug-induced mystical
experience-or at least i think that it was.but guess what?i am really
going to rock the boat here,i am a christian!i was obsessed by
hallucinogens for years,but then i had a realization-and a
few “devilish” trips,where i actually sincerely prayed,because at
that time i KNEW that there is a God(because of the “godlessness”
quality of the trip-,a realization that maybe,just maybe that the
authors of the bible were just telling the TRUTH.i mean,dick,is your
name really dick?-michael,is your name really micheal?etc.etc.etc.get
my point?and anyway,i only have to ask myself if what i am reading in
the bible is true,and i have to say YES,eg.thou shalt not steal-i
KNOW it is wrong to steal(that is just a simple example.)btw dick,are
you in somerset?i am in wrexham,n.wales-in case you were
wondering.you never know ,we might meet some day!
bye now,and come on people,let’s stick to the subject,eh?i was
hoping to find a site where i could share/compare experiences,and
maybe explain them,from different
perspectives,eg.jung,leary,spirtually,cognitively,etc.




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 2534 From: Dick Richardson Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Fw: [gnosis284] science today
—– Original Message —–
From: Dick Richardson
To: gnosis284
Sent: Friday, November 14, 2003 1:09 PM
Subject: Re: [gnosis284] science today


Hi mac,

The things which you mention there are of course true, there is no denying that. But do you not think that it is a little one sided and biased viewpoint?

Tell me this…. Would you have preferred your children to have been born into this world at any past time or place on this world? Medicine, transportation, communication, education, media potential, hobbies and interests pursuits are more advanced than they have ever been on earth. True, all of it could be a lot better, and will get better in due course; and true there is a lot of commercial and political strife – but there always has been mate. If you and I want a better world then there is only one way to get it – role your selves up and make it that way. No amount of wishing or praying or hoping is going to make it better – only the love and commitment to life on earth and social harmony will effect it when we role our sleeves up and get the job done. The human mind is evolving and opening up to a wider spectrum of creation all the time. But you and I right now can but make the world just a little better tomorrow than it is today. One small step at a time. Time and again my friend – it goes on and the implicate order of being unfolds in the mind of man. Don’t let poor old Pete make you feel depressed eh – where there is life then hope springs eternal; and where there is love and commitment then progress is made. If you do not like it then work to make it better mate – as do millions of us. Will we ever succeed? I do not know, but I would die trying; for what else is the point of existing? Therein is the Dignity of Man.

Regards Dick


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 2535 From: Dick Richardson Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: The big Picture
The Big Picture.


I do not know why but I have had a batch of rather depressing and miserable emails this week. They tell me that this is wrong, and that is wrong, and every damn thing is wrong, and the world and life is not only rotten but getting worse on daily basis. I would imagine that a percentage of human beings at any point in history, and possibly the future, would claim this – especially when they are feeling fed-up for some reason – yeah we all do it at times eh; and nobody loves a good moan more than I do.


But let us look at the bigger picture; and without one-sided and pessimistic bias. As I said in a recent email ‘ Would you want your children to have been born at any prior time or place in the past’? It is so easy to observe the past through nostalgia and rose colour specks is it not. But who makes the world such as it is? Some of the job is done for us; and we have an incredibly beautiful world where things just seem to work reasonable enough for the job. From that point on it is we that fashion the world and build human civilisations; and that becomes our existing existential existence and life on earth experience.


Is not the mind of man (humanity) aware of far more things now then even a mere hundred years ago; let along fifty thousand years ago? Does not this growing awareness of things not make us just a little smarter in consensus terms than the consensus was ten thousand years ago? Does not this knowledge and acquired understanding give us more potential right now than humanity has ever had in the past? The rest is just a simple choice – how to use it best for the benefit of both the planet itself and all life forms upon it. That is both a choice and a cosmological challenge. Shall we weep into our beer and pray that it all might become a little better? Nothing will happen if we do; indeed it would probably get even worse. The only way to make a better world, as I said before, is to role your sleeves up and go make it that way. Nothing else is going to make it better here. True, a bloody great rock might smash into the world tomorrow and destroy the lot of it – but so what? We have to work on the basis that it will not happen, and continue to strive to make the world (mans part in it) a better place for children to come to.


Every action which you do today will be the foundation of the world tomorrow. And nothing which you do today can ever be undone; for that deed will always have been done. No amount of tears, remorse, pain and suffering, can go back to undo a jot of it; what is done is done for ever. However, that which was not done yesterday can be done today, for tomorrow. Society is only the sum of the individuals within that society. But when people work together in harmony and accord toward a goal or inspiration then the accumulative effect of working together is greater than the sum of the individual parts working alone.


Tell the world, the governments (which you elect by the way) what kind of a world you want for the next generation – and then insist that it be done. The insistence of the consensus can never ever be over-ruled by dictate of a few (unless you let them of course – then more fool you if you do). On our own you and I have no more power over anything than did any individual cave dweller a million years ago. But combined we can build a world fit for children to come into. Man, that is power. Do not wish it; do not pray for it; do not hope for it – go and make it so. Is the will there? Is the passion there? Is the commitment there? Search within yourself; ask yourself – do you care? Most human beings do care; and that power is in your hands and minds. Civilisations do not grow on trees; they come from the mind of Man. If we do not use it then we are a ship without a rudder and tossed hither and thither by the winds of chance. If we use our minds and the collective power which humanity has on earth – we can make a world fitting for the Dignity of Man – a phenomenon of the deepest mystery and profundity in all known existence.


We can moan and cringe, complain and opt out of the struggle; or we can face the challenge and using all the powers and potentials invested in humanity. We have to make that choice – assuming that one can even see it as a choice. But the alternative to not going for it and grabbing hold of it all in both hope and optimism is a choice which is no choice. I have not seen it written that this world of humanity has to succeed. Neither have I seen it written that it cannot succeed. Why miss out on a possible success by doing nothing other than moaning, complaining and weeping into ones beer? If you want a decent world then go make it. Nothing is stopping you, and the equipment for the job is already there within you.


Some hope and pray for a better life in the next world. Well, right at this point we are here on this world NOW. So do not waste the opportunity which exists here and now. We might collectively fail in this earth project. But so what if we did? To fail due to not trying is not very dignified; but to fail after trying one’s best contains no problem and says much for the dignity of man. But, who knows, we might not fail. Is that not simple pragmatism? And why look a gift horse in the mouth? Every human being alive on earth today can each help just a little in making this world a little better for tomorrow. Ask yourself. is the world a little better place to be because you existed in it and did your bit? That is the one and only judgement which stands head and shoulders above all the others which you have to make on a daily basis. If you do not help to make a better world then why should the others? But you can try, even if they don’t eh. And you will sleep well, live well, and die well.


And how could man die better,

than facing fearful odds,

for the future of his children,

and all the other sods?


Dick Richardson. West Somerset. UK.






[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 2536 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
Dick writes:

>>>>>>>>OK David,

Thank you for the information and fill in. Two last questions if I
may before
leaving.

(1) Given that you claim to have encountered (by drugs) the things of
which I talk, viz. the realisation of Self beyond the event of
Annihilation,
and into the Resurrection of the Eternal mode of Being – and also
the event
which I call the Consummatum Incarnate, then how do you square this
with
Buddhism (to which you belong) in which most of its sects seem to
preach that
there is no real Self in the system – No real observer of the
observed ?<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Keep in mind thee are words developed many years ago to describe
various aspects of enthegenic experience and the resulting
awareness. But it is still just words—very old words.

Physics the science will say similar things but this does not negate
reality of day to day life, nor does real Buddhism consider
everything meaningless and void. Voidness in real Buddhism is
potentiality. Although the independent self is in fact empty, this
emptiness is still potential and latent cause and effect.

Buddhism has the term “three aspects” it was explained using the
analogy of a seed that has the tree latent within it. The three
aspects are voidness, manifestation and the union of those two which
is like the seed itself–the Middle path and all three are
inseparable. All phenomena according to real Buddhism can be shown
to have these three aspects. A seed has within it the latent tree
which can manifest and produce more seeds etc.

As far as self goes, real Buddhism breaks it down the individual
into the “5 components” which are ever-shifting and arise from
voidness. Death is the dissolution of these 5 components. So in
this sense there is no “self.” On the other hand, real Buddhism
will clarify that ultimatly opposites such as “self an no-self” are
inseparable as the Middle Way.

Again it is all words in a specific context. When people take
Buddhism literally it will be according to their particular
perception and interprwtation which will be influenced by the
momentary life state. Real buddhism teaches the fusion of subject
and object and inseparability of mind and matter. Furthermore real
Buddhism teaches of what is called “Mutual Possession,” or
interdependance of the life states, which is akin to the holographic
reality model.

Buddhism also teaches that variou expedients have been used to
instruct people and in Mahayana, refutes various expedients and
updates them.

Ultimately it is just words and people who are into theoretical
structures, devoid of true experiential undrstanding can easily can
lost in the hall of mirrors until they realize that the Middle Way
is fundamental to all these conceptions. The Middle Way is
expressed in the Mahayana Sutra, called “The Sutra of Infinite
meaning”:

“His body is neither existing nor non-existing;
Without cause or condition,
Without self or others;
Neither square nor round,
Neither long nor short;
Without appearance or disappearance,
Without birth or death;
Neither created nor emanating,
Neither made nor produced;
Neither sitting nor lying,
Neither walking nor stopping;
Neither moving nor rolling,
Neither calm nor quiet;
Without advance or retreat,
Without safety or danger;
Without right or wrong,
Without merit or demerit;
Neither that nor this,
Neither going nor coming;
Neither blue nor yellow,
Neither red nor white;
Neither crimson nor purple,
Without a variety of color.”



>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>1.. Having heard what you have to say I would now
like to move on to read at least one hundred documented accounts of
experiences which have been induced which at least equal that event.
So, could you tell me where these reports can be found please. I
have given you addresses which contain at least 10,000 accounts of
modern day spontaneous experiences for analysis – and there are of
course far more in print; but for one place to contain over 6000 is
a good starting point – the AHRC as mentioned elsewhere. Many thanks.
Dick.<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<


Perhaps others would like to comment on this.

The web is full of experiential testimony and many sites dedicated
to entheogens. There are endless books on the subject–much of it
imperfect. For realtime stuff you can go to yahoo groups full of
young people describing there experience with Salvia divinourum,
Ayuahasca, Mushrooms, and derivatives. No one place is going to
give you a compete picture. A good place to start is http://www.erowid.org

go to the erowid bibliography/library.



dc
Group: egodeath Message: 2537 From: mindexpand2001 Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
— In egodeath@yahoogroups.com, “rialcnis2000” <rialcnis2000@y…>
wrote:
> (MINDEXPAND SAYS GO TO BOTTOM OF PAGE,PLEASE!!)
> Dick writes:
>
> >>>>>>>>OK David,
>
> Thank you for the information and fill in. Two last questions if I
> may before
> leaving.
>
> (1) Given that you claim to have encountered (by drugs) the things
of
> which I talk, viz. the realisation of Self beyond the event of
> Annihilation,
> and into the Resurrection of the Eternal mode of Being – and also
> the event
> which I call the Consummatum Incarnate, then how do you square this
> with
> Buddhism (to which you belong) in which most of its sects seem to
> preach that
> there is no real Self in the system – No real observer of the
> observed ?<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
>
> Keep in mind thee are words developed many years ago to describe
> various aspects of enthegenic experience and the resulting
> awareness. But it is still just words—very old words.
>
> Physics the science will say similar things but this does not
negate
> reality of day to day life, nor does real Buddhism consider
> everything meaningless and void. Voidness in real Buddhism is
> potentiality. Although the independent self is in fact empty, this
> emptiness is still potential and latent cause and effect.
>
> Buddhism has the term “three aspects” it was explained using the
> analogy of a seed that has the tree latent within it. The three
> aspects are voidness, manifestation and the union of those two
which
> is like the seed itself–the Middle path and all three are
> inseparable. All phenomena according to real Buddhism can be shown
> to have these three aspects. A seed has within it the latent tree
> which can manifest and produce more seeds etc.
>
> As far as self goes, real Buddhism breaks it down the individual
> into the “5 components” which are ever-shifting and arise from
> voidness. Death is the dissolution of these 5 components. So in
> this sense there is no “self.” On the other hand, real Buddhism
> will clarify that ultimatly opposites such as “self an no-self” are
> inseparable as the Middle Way.
>
> Again it is all words in a specific context. When people take
> Buddhism literally it will be according to their particular
> perception and interprwtation which will be influenced by the
> momentary life state. Real buddhism teaches the fusion of subject
> and object and inseparability of mind and matter. Furthermore real
> Buddhism teaches of what is called “Mutual Possession,” or
> interdependance of the life states, which is akin to the
holographic
> reality model.
>
> Buddhism also teaches that variou expedients have been used to
> instruct people and in Mahayana, refutes various expedients and
> updates them.
>
> Ultimately it is just words and people who are into theoretical
> structures, devoid of true experiential undrstanding can easily can
> lost in the hall of mirrors until they realize that the Middle Way
> is fundamental to all these conceptions. The Middle Way is
> expressed in the Mahayana Sutra, called “The Sutra of Infinite
> meaning”:
>
> “His body is neither existing nor non-existing;
> Without cause or condition,
> Without self or others;
> Neither square nor round,
> Neither long nor short;
> Without appearance or disappearance,
> Without birth or death;
> Neither created nor emanating,
> Neither made nor produced;
> Neither sitting nor lying,
> Neither walking nor stopping;
> Neither moving nor rolling,
> Neither calm nor quiet;
> Without advance or retreat,
> Without safety or danger;
> Without right or wrong,
> Without merit or demerit;
> Neither that nor this,
> Neither going nor coming;
> Neither blue nor yellow,
> Neither red nor white;
> Neither crimson nor purple,
> Without a variety of color.”
>
>
>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>1.. Having heard what you have to say I would now
> like to move on to read at least one hundred documented accounts of
> experiences which have been induced which at least equal that
event.
> So, could you tell me where these reports can be found please. I
> have given you addresses which contain at least 10,000 accounts of
> modern day spontaneous experiences for analysis – and there are of
> course far more in print; but for one place to contain over 6000 is
> a good starting point – the AHRC as mentioned elsewhere. Many
thanks.
> Dick.<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
>
>
> Perhaps others would like to comment on this.
>
> The web is full of experiential testimony and many sites dedicated
> to entheogens. There are endless books on the subject–much of it
> imperfect. For realtime stuff you can go to yahoo groups full of
> young people describing there experience with Salvia divinourum,
> Ayuahasca, Mushrooms, and derivatives. No one place is going to
> give you a compete picture. A good place to start is http://www.erowid.org
>
> go to the erowid bibliography/library.
>
>
>
> dc
hello nialcis.you mentioned that you had a weird experience 18 yrs
ago and had no-one to share your story with.well,same here-about 13
yrs,so i’d love to hear from you.mindexpand.bye
Group: egodeath Message: 2538 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
hello nialcis.you mentioned that you had a weird experience 18 yrs
ago and had no-one to share your story with.well,same here-about 13
yrs,so i’d love to hear from you.mindexpand.bye,,,

You must have picked up the number “18” where I mentioned I worked
in Psychiatric wards for 18 years. My primary entheogenic
experiences were in 1965-1969.

Did I say “weird”? Its all weird.

dc

— In egodeath@yahoogroups.com, “mindexpand2001”
<lauren.kayleighevans@v…> wrote:
> — In egodeath@yahoogroups.com, “rialcnis2000”
<rialcnis2000@y…>
> wrote:
> > (MINDEXPAND SAYS GO TO BOTTOM OF PAGE,PLEASE!!)
> > Dick writes:
> >
> > >>>>>>>>OK David,
> >
> > Thank you for the information and fill in. Two last questions if
I
> > may before
> > leaving.
> >
> > (1) Given that you claim to have encountered (by drugs) the
things
> of
> > which I talk, viz. the realisation of Self beyond the event of
> > Annihilation,
> > and into the Resurrection of the Eternal mode of Being – and
also
> > the event
> > which I call the Consummatum Incarnate, then how do you square
this
> > with
> > Buddhism (to which you belong) in which most of its sects seem
to
> > preach that
> > there is no real Self in the system – No real observer of the
> > observed ?<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
> >
> > Keep in mind thee are words developed many years ago to describe
> > various aspects of enthegenic experience and the resulting
> > awareness. But it is still just words—very old words.
> >
> > Physics the science will say similar things but this does not
> negate
> > reality of day to day life, nor does real Buddhism consider
> > everything meaningless and void. Voidness in real Buddhism is
> > potentiality. Although the independent self is in fact empty,
this
> > emptiness is still potential and latent cause and effect.
> >
> > Buddhism has the term “three aspects” it was explained using the
> > analogy of a seed that has the tree latent within it. The three
> > aspects are voidness, manifestation and the union of those two
> which
> > is like the seed itself–the Middle path and all three are
> > inseparable. All phenomena according to real Buddhism can be
shown
> > to have these three aspects. A seed has within it the latent
tree
> > which can manifest and produce more seeds etc.
> >
> > As far as self goes, real Buddhism breaks it down the
individual
> > into the “5 components” which are ever-shifting and arise from
> > voidness. Death is the dissolution of these 5 components. So
in
> > this sense there is no “self.” On the other hand, real Buddhism
> > will clarify that ultimatly opposites such as “self an no-self”
are
> > inseparable as the Middle Way.
> >
> > Again it is all words in a specific context. When people take
> > Buddhism literally it will be according to their particular
> > perception and interprwtation which will be influenced by the
> > momentary life state. Real buddhism teaches the fusion of
subject
> > and object and inseparability of mind and matter. Furthermore
real
> > Buddhism teaches of what is called “Mutual Possession,” or
> > interdependance of the life states, which is akin to the
> holographic
> > reality model.
> >
> > Buddhism also teaches that variou expedients have been used to
> > instruct people and in Mahayana, refutes various expedients and
> > updates them.
> >
> > Ultimately it is just words and people who are into theoretical
> > structures, devoid of true experiential undrstanding can easily
can
> > lost in the hall of mirrors until they realize that the Middle
Way
> > is fundamental to all these conceptions. The Middle Way is
> > expressed in the Mahayana Sutra, called “The Sutra of Infinite
> > meaning”:
> >
> > “His body is neither existing nor non-existing;
> > Without cause or condition,
> > Without self or others;
> > Neither square nor round,
> > Neither long nor short;
> > Without appearance or disappearance,
> > Without birth or death;
> > Neither created nor emanating,
> > Neither made nor produced;
> > Neither sitting nor lying,
> > Neither walking nor stopping;
> > Neither moving nor rolling,
> > Neither calm nor quiet;
> > Without advance or retreat,
> > Without safety or danger;
> > Without right or wrong,
> > Without merit or demerit;
> > Neither that nor this,
> > Neither going nor coming;
> > Neither blue nor yellow,
> > Neither red nor white;
> > Neither crimson nor purple,
> > Without a variety of color.”
> >
> >
> >
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>1.. Having heard what you have to say I would
now
> > like to move on to read at least one hundred documented accounts
of
> > experiences which have been induced which at least equal that
> event.
> > So, could you tell me where these reports can be found please. I
> > have given you addresses which contain at least 10,000 accounts
of
> > modern day spontaneous experiences for analysis – and there are
of
> > course far more in print; but for one place to contain over 6000
is
> > a good starting point – the AHRC as mentioned elsewhere. Many
> thanks.
> > Dick.<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
> >
> >
> > Perhaps others would like to comment on this.
> >
> > The web is full of experiential testimony and many sites
dedicated
> > to entheogens. There are endless books on the subject–much of
it
> > imperfect. For realtime stuff you can go to yahoo groups full
of
> > young people describing there experience with Salvia divinourum,
> > Ayuahasca, Mushrooms, and derivatives. No one place is going to
> > give you a compete picture. A good place to start is
http://www.erowid.org
> >
> > go to the erowid bibliography/library.
> >
> >
> >
> > dc
> hello nialcis.you mentioned that you had a weird experience 18 yrs
> ago and had no-one to share your story with.well,same here-about
13
> yrs,so i’d love to hear from you.mindexpand.bye
Group: egodeath Message: 2539 From: Dick Richardson Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
Well David,

Thank you for the information, the time and the trouble. I have never met another drug advocate who presented their case so well – and far more help than some of the idiotic discharge and tirade on this list.

Yes indeed language (as yet anyway) is a pain in the arse and causes more problems and division than the present good it can do. So, we simply have to keep working at it. Perhaps we all ought to learn Pure German eh. But English seems to have a little more humour in it and which rubs off on the speakers of that language – we can sure have a lot of fun with it eh.

I would recommend however that if your ‘organisation’ does contain the truth which you claim for it then they should work together and get their act together. You know as well as I do that in general terms the drug scene does not go down well with the consensus of humanity simply by what they see around them on a daily bases and the social problems it causes.

You also know as well as I do that the average human beings concentration span is rather short (perhaps they should all learn to play chess in schools eh) so such things as the so called truth of general Buddhism are taken at face value of the words contained therein. This is not a problem for the mob it is a problem for those who have something to say in order to get their concentration wanting to hear more. Simple psychology and salesmanship mate – as you probably well know. ( I was a good Salesman once :- ))

Anyway, thanks for your time, and I will look further into your claims – albeit not by experimentation; for as I truly stated – they happen anyway, and without any help from me. I have always advocated however that people should put themselves in the path of it happening; by feeling life deeply, going with the flow, and relaxing a little more often. I also advocate that people should share their experiences with others – alas we can only do it by way of words – but words do have a power you know – the power of the word.

Regards, Dick Richardson.
—– Original Message —–
From: rialcnis2000
To: egodeath@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, November 14, 2003 4:48 PM
Subject: [egodeath] Re: Ego death then, so be it.



Dick writes:



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 2540 From: Dick Richardson Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Fw: [gnosis284] RE: Buddhism
—– Original Message —–
From: andrew smith
To: gnosis284 ; Yahoo! Groups Notification
Sent: Friday, November 14, 2003 5:25 PM
Subject: [gnosis284] RE: Buddhism


Buddhist basics

The Three Characteristics of life.

Dukkha = suffering or “unsatisfactoriness”
‘Birth is suffering, ageing is suffering, death is suffering; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and tribulation are suffering; association with what one dislikes is suffering; separation from what one likes is suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering.’
Samyutta Nikaya 5: 421-3

Anicca
All created, compounded and conditioned things are not permanent and are subject to change.

Anatta
There is no permanent soul, self, ego or Atman to be found that is unchanging or continues after death.



CREDO: “Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam”
Andrew W. Smith

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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 2541 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: The big Picture
>>>>>>>True, a bloody great rock might smash into the world tomorrow
and destroy the lot of it – but so what? We have to work on the
basis that it will not happen, and continue to strive to make the
world (mans part in it) a better place for children to come
to.<<<<<<<<

I don’t know if it is wise to go on the assumption terrible things
won’t happen. Of course people shuldn;t become obsessed with
catastrophic expectations, and paranoid, but is is intellegent
and “smarter,” to deal with the possibility of asteroid impact etc,
and have a solution already provided. I simple mechancal solution.

You wear a seat beat in a car because it is possible you might get
in a crash. If you do not wear it that is silly. At the same time,
don’t you want to see better antibiotics and cures for diseases? I
would asume you do. You can’t sit there and think, “I won’t ever
get sick.” That is just as silly as being excessively worried over
it. I had to comment because it tends to annoy me when people have
a laissez faire attitude about asteroids and other such basic
realities they could deal with using the tools we have available,
where they not o busy arguing with each other or oil and religious
dogma.

dc
Group: egodeath Message: 2542 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
>>>>>>>I would recommend however that if your ‘organisation’ does
contain the truth which you claim for it<<<<<<

There is no “organization” to speak of that I am a part of at this
time. Although I support a few of the Entheogenic website/org efforts


>>>>>>then they should work together and get their act together.
<<<<

I agree with this wholeheartedly. Ther has never been any cohesion
in this areas, because people, myaself included do not care for
oraganizations per se. But I believe strongly that the best
appraoch for enthegenic advocates is in COURT in the US and other
countries were “freedom of relgion” is said to exist–fighting laws
prohibiting relgious use and research. I think that is a case of
relgious freedom that can be proven in court and won. The basis of
this case would be that Entheogenic Experience, is in fact the
origin of “religion.”


>>>>>You also know as well as I do that the average human beings
concentration span is rather short >

no argument from me there.

dc
Group: egodeath Message: 2543 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: Fw: [gnosis284] RE: Buddhism
You might be interested in reading this which is Mahayana that
teaches that these early teachings were Chapter 2, 3, 7 AND 16
explains the use of expedient means where Buddhism seems to reverese
itself. At any rate all old stuff is just that …old and alwasy
need updating according to time and place.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/lotus/

dc




>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Buddhist basics

The Three Characteristics of life.

Dukkha = suffering or “unsatisfactoriness”
‘Birth is suffering, ageing is suffering, death is suffering;
sorrow,
lamentation, pain, grief and tribulation are suffering; association
with what
one dislikes is suffering; separation from what one likes is
suffering; not to
get what one wants is suffering.’
Samyutta Nikaya 5: 421-3

Anicca
All created, compounded and conditioned things are not permanent and
are subject
to change.

Anatta
There is no permanent soul, self, ego or Atman to be found that is
unchanging or
continues after death.
— In egodeath@yahoogroups.com, “Dick Richardson” <dick@p…> wrote:
Group: egodeath Message: 2544 From: Dick Richardson Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: The big Picture
Oh David, do not take everything so literal and simple; yeah yeah yeah of course we have to cater for all that, and we do. However, it does not detract from what I said – we cannot live our lives here in the expectation that we will not be here tomorrow – society would bloody collapse mate.

By the way I try to avoid seat belts even though it is the law of the land – ah shit, it is more comfortable mate. I have been driving every day since I was fifteen and never scratched the paint yet – yes we have to watch out for the others, but we can anticipate the sods eh. And if you do happen to die in a big crash – then so be it. Here today, gone tomorrow – but not all at the same time eh :- )))

Keep smiling petal. I must be off now – that will cheer them all up here eh mate :- )) Bloody ignorant cockney mystic that I am :- (((( Here here they all say – first words of truth he has spoken yet !!!! Like hell eh. Have a good life David.

Dick.
—– Original Message —–
From: rialcnis2000
To: egodeath@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, November 14, 2003 6:23 PM
Subject: [egodeath] Re: The big Picture


>>>>>>>True, a bloody great rock might smash into the world tomorrow
and destroy the lot of it – but so what? We have to work on the
basis that it will not happen, and continue to strive to make the
world (mans part in it) a better place for children to come
to.<<<<<<<<

I don’t know if it is wise to go on the assumption terrible things
won’t happen. Of course people shuldn;t become obsessed with
catastrophic expectations, and paranoid, but is is intellegent
and “smarter,” to deal with the possibility of asteroid impact etc,
and have a solution already provided. I simple mechancal solution


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 2545 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: The big Picture
Adios, but you really should wear that seatbeat. The ride might be
bumpy.

lol


dc



>>>Oh David, do not take everything so literal and simple; yeah yeah
yeah of course
we have to cater for all that, and we do. However, it does not
detract from what
I said – we cannot live our lives here in the expectation that we
will not be
here tomorrow – society would bloody collapse mate.

By the way I try to avoid seat belts even though it is the law of
the land – ah
shit, it is more comfortable mate. I have been driving every day
since I was
fifteen and never scratched the paint yet – yes we have to watch out
for the
others, but we can anticipate the sods eh. And if you do happen to
die in a big
crash – then so be it. Here today, gone tomorrow – but not all at
the same time
eh :- )))

Keep smiling petal. I must be off now – that will cheer them all up
here eh
mate :- )) Bloody ignorant cockney mystic that I am :- (((( Here
here they all
say – first words of truth he has spoken yet !!!! Like hell eh. Have
a good
life David.

Dick.

Egodeath Yahoo Group – Digest 30: 2003-03-22

Site Map


Group: egodeath Message: 1481 From: RogDog Date: 22/03/2003
Subject: DMT.. A fleeting Glimpse
Group: egodeath Message: 1482 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 23/03/2003
Subject: Book “Historical Mary”: “Mary” means sacred prostitute
Group: egodeath Message: 1483 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 23/03/2003
Subject: Fungus-growing ants and myth
Group: egodeath Message: 1484 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 23/03/2003
Subject: Reframing “HJ/no-HJ” as hi/lo degree of dependent focus
Group: egodeath Message: 1485 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 23/03/2003
Subject: Trajectories of bands that discover LSD
Group: egodeath Message: 1486 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Re: Mapping this theory to high-level Buddhism
Group: egodeath Message: 1487 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Acid Rock lyrics: remote cueing across verses
Group: egodeath Message: 1488 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Nirvana, metaphor, kingdom of heaven
Group: egodeath Message: 1489 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Demons’ animal aspect; goat-man; donkey & rider
Group: egodeath Message: 1490 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Re: Further Buddhist terms
Group: egodeath Message: 1491 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Bible record is true
Group: egodeath Message: 1492 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Idolatrous, self-fabric. relig. of lit’ist “Christians”
Group: egodeath Message: 1493 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Re: Defining “high-level” theory of myth, archetypes, astrotheology
Group: egodeath Message: 1494 From: panoptes69 Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Re: Demons’ animal aspect; goat-man; donkey & rider
Group: egodeath Message: 1495 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Re: Further Buddhist terms
Group: egodeath Message: 1496 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Re: Mapping this theory to high-level Buddhism
Group: egodeath Message: 1497 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Re: Defining “high-level” theory of myth, archetypes, astrotheology
Group: egodeath Message: 1498 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Re: Demons’ animal aspect; goat-man; donkey & rider
Group: egodeath Message: 1499 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Re: Acid Rock lyrics: remote cueing across verses
Group: egodeath Message: 1500 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Re: Nirvana, metaphor, kingdom of heaven
Group: egodeath Message: 1501 From: spastic_prune Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Re: Acid Rock lyrics: remote cueing across verses
Group: egodeath Message: 1502 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Re: Acid Rock lyrics: remote cueing across verses
Group: egodeath Message: 1503 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 25/03/2003
Subject: Re: Nirvana, metaphor, kingdom of heaven
Group: egodeath Message: 1504 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 25/03/2003
Subject: Re: Demons’ animal aspect; goat-man; donkey & rider
Group: egodeath Message: 1505 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 25/03/2003
Subject: Re: Acid Rock lyrics: remote cueing across verses
Group: egodeath Message: 1506 From: spastic_prune Date: 25/03/2003
Subject: Re: Acid Rock lyrics: remote cueing across verses
Group: egodeath Message: 1507 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 26/03/2003
Subject: Re: Day of wrath, narrow aversion of control-loss disaster
Group: egodeath Message: 1508 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 26/03/2003
Subject: Jesus, king of the puppets in God’s arrived kingdom
Group: egodeath Message: 1509 From: merker2002 Date: 27/03/2003
Subject: Re: Jesus, king of the puppets in God’s arrived kingdom
Group: egodeath Message: 1510 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 27/03/2003
Subject: High and low meaning of Judas; degrees of coherence
Group: egodeath Message: 1511 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 27/03/2003
Subject: Scope of Christian mythic system to be explained
Group: egodeath Message: 1512 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 27/03/2003
Subject: Bennett/Ruck’s cannabis Christ in Door Xn magazine
Group: egodeath Message: 1513 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 27/03/2003
Subject: Fundamental Object Of Veneration For Contemplating The Mind
Group: egodeath Message: 1514 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 28/03/2003
Subject: Re: Bennett/Ruck’s cannabis Christ in Door Xn magazine
Group: egodeath Message: 1515 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 28/03/2003
Subject: Heinrich concedes no-HJ explan. Apocrypha, 2-state interp.
Group: egodeath Message: 1516 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 29/03/2003
Subject: New in Heinrich’s “Magic Mushrooms in Religion and Alchemy”
Group: egodeath Message: 1517 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 29/03/2003
Subject: Rational Spirituality site
Group: egodeath Message: 1518 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 29/03/2003
Subject: We’re way behind in reading postings
Group: egodeath Message: 1519 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 29/03/2003
Subject: TRIP issue 9 is now shipping
Group: egodeath Message: 1520 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 29/03/2003
Subject: Repairing the rift among entheogen scholars
Group: egodeath Message: 1521 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 29/03/2003
Subject: Has entheogen theory been effectively communicated?
Group: egodeath Message: 1522 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 30/03/2003
Subject: Amazon review: Bennett’s “Drugs in the Bible”
Group: egodeath Message: 1523 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 30/03/2003
Subject: Assessing the influence of Bennett’s work
Group: egodeath Message: 1524 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 30/03/2003
Subject: Re: Has entheogen theory been effectively communicated?
Group: egodeath Message: 1525 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 30/03/2003
Subject: Re: Has entheogen theory been effectively communicated?
Group: egodeath Message: 1526 From: spamsquatch69 Date: 31/03/2003
Subject: The meaning of the S.A.T.O. Abbreviation in the song by Ozzy
Group: egodeath Message: 1527 From: egodeath@yahoogroups.com Date: 31/03/2003
Subject: File – EgodeathPostingRules.txt
Group: egodeath Message: 1528 From: egodeath@yahoogroups.com Date: 31/03/2003
Subject: New file uploaded to egodeath
Group: egodeath Message: 1529 From: egodeath@yahoogroups.com Date: 31/03/2003
Subject: New file uploaded to egodeath
Group: egodeath Message: 1530 From: egodeath@yahoogroups.com Date: 31/03/2003
Subject: New file uploaded to egodeath



Group: egodeath Message: 1481 From: RogDog Date: 22/03/2003
Subject: DMT.. A fleeting Glimpse
It truely is something that haunts, excites, bewilders and astonishes
me everytime i think back to that fateful day i was ‘cursed’ with a
DMT encounter.

I often wonder if it will ever find me with the same impact again.

I am really divided intellectually on what I experienced, reading
into shamanism and sorcery, then into Tibetan Buddhism, there is a
slight confliction in my views. Maybe in the end the Dzogchen
Buddhists are closest to understanding what happens, essentially
saying that all projections are from the ground luminosity, and
represent the power of it. if noticed as your own projection,
realisation is attained. I feel bewildered currently, although not
disturbed from it. It’s just that certain knowing that there was an
energy in front of me, independent from me, yet only appearing to me
when I closed my eyes and sought to go deeper.

So many questions, how many Dzogchen Buddists throughout history have
experienced first hand smoked DMT crystals, what would they say then?

The seemingly logical yet not often thought or talked about view that
life forces are everywhere, even in non-material realms that overlap
this one seem closer to the truth than ever now. Dzogchen Buddhism
views all experience but the ground luminosity as Samsara, from my
knowledge of it so far…. this view on the illusionary nature of
reality for me is so damn harder for me to accept at the moment than
the thought and feeling that there are independant, intelligent life
forces out there feeding off emotional energies that humans produce.

go here to see my artwork on the subject
http://www.erowid.org/culture/art/artists_e/art_essig_roger.shtml
A lot more questioning and alienation to go through till I’m
satisfied with this.

Roger Essig,
http://www.rogeressig.tk
Glimpse-of-Eternity
Group: egodeath Message: 1482 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 23/03/2003
Subject: Book “Historical Mary”: “Mary” means sacred prostitute
>>why the Parisee called Magdalene is a sinner? She was thief or burglar? …
Yes, she maybe was a harlot for some reasons. Anyway, I think she was a harlot
before meeting Christ as did another Sophia’s reincarnations at every age,
Helen, Cleopatra, etc.

The Historical Mary: Revealing the Pagan Identity of the Virgin Mother
Michael Jordan, Feb. 2003
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1569753342

A major theme in the Jewish bible is the popularity of cultic prostitution.
Mary Magdalene and the Virgin Mary should be considered as a cultic
prostitute, or considered in light of cultic prostitution. The book _The
Historical Mary_ proposes that the name “Mary” connotes cultic prostitution.
Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus includes five women who weren’t monotheistic but
who instead acted like cultic prostitutes, which were used to engender divine
kings.

I’m especially interested in understanding what the veneration of Mary during
the Middle Ages was really all about. This book covers that, and first
establishes a base of cultic prostitution in the ancient Near Eastern
religions and the Jewish religion. Apparently there are three intermingled
ways of reading “virgin”:

1. In ancient and later times, themes around the “virgin” idea had
mystic/mythic meaning, in which religious mythic figures represent aspects of
the psyche, particularly reflecting the experiences and the insights of the
intense mystic altered state. I haven’t determined yet whether the book
discusses mythic figures as personifications of the phenomena of the psyche
encountered during intense mystic altered-state experiencing.

2. By the principle of “as above, so below” — as in the mythic/mystic realm,
so shall we literally act out — actual sex was integrated into cultic
practice, both in ancient Near East religions and in medieval esoteric
practice (that is, European religion other than that of the official Church).

3. In opposition to the mystic altered state meaning, and in opposition to the
cultic sex practice that largely reflected the mystic altered state meaning,
the official Church sought to create a competing, different reading of the
“virgin mother of God” concept, one that was suitable for strategically
co-opting and obscuring the mystic and cultic systems’ reading of “virgin” and
“Mary” themes.


This book doesn’t integrate the cultic sex practices with a developed theory
of entheogen use, but does mention possible “drug” use, and mentions the trial
by drinking “dust and water”, which Dan Merkur in “Mystery of Manna” has shown
probably meant trial by ergot. Entheogen theory holds that “under the tree”,
a main theme of fertility cults, means, first of all, the Amanita mushroom,
which grows under the exactly the species of trees used in the fertility
cults.

John Allegro was severely punished for writing a book that combined several
radical proposals together: Jesus didn’t exist, some early Christians were
into cultic sex, and some early Christians used entheogens. It is fully
understandable that few authors are eager to cover more than one controversial
aspect of Christian origins, with Allegro swinging by the neck in the
background. The inquisition doesn’t kill authors literally these days, but it
effectively kills authors as far as their viability as respected scholars.

People should expect that if the actual history of Christianity is profoundly
different than the professional Church historians claim, it is likely to be
different in more than just one or two ways: radically different in many ways,
ways that all come back together to form a system of religion that is wholly
alien from the picture painted by the official Church.

Single-issue would-be “radical” historical revisionism is titilating but
single issue revisionism, by itself, is no threat to the official picture.
Only when all ten, say, of the radical revisions are reassembled, does the
seriously threatening coherent alternative telling of history fall into place.

The book essentially confirms my still unformed hypothesis that the Virgin
Mary somehow “is” Mary Magdalene. It proposes that the intended number of
Marys is seven. I hold that all the Marys, all the Jesus/Joshuas, and all the
Simons/Peters are *essentially* myth, and are functionally entirely
independent of any historical figures that may have been similar.

Like nearly all published books, this book is absurd in assuming the Bible
characters existed — “we know that Peter was in Rome…”. However, it is
redeemed in that it mentions “evidence that Jesus existed”, thus admitting
that we can’t simply take it for granted that Jesus existed.


Related:
The sacred mushroom and the cross; a study of the nature and origins of
Christianity within the fertility cults of the ancient Near East
John Allegro
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0340128755

Book lists:
Philosophy of Mother of God:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/20S7TV13O9SLD
Mary “John” Magdalene, The Beloved Disciple:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/CV3ZTFHJV6TP


>>does Gnostic Christianity believe that one must be a Gnostic Christian to
survive the Final Judgement?

Some Gnostic groups did. Mystically, by definition, survivors of the Final
Judgement are Gnostic elect. Surviving the wrath of God and knowing and
experiencing God’s omnipotence against the lower self amount to two metaphors
for the same thing.


— Michael Hoffman
http://www.egodeath.com — simple theory of the ego-death and rebirth
experience
Group: egodeath Message: 1483 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 23/03/2003
Subject: Fungus-growing ants and myth
Fascinating thread on a Mycology Usenet Group:

“From The Oregonian, Jan. 22, 2003, p A16 (SCIENCE)

Ants engage in evolutionary war
An OSU scientist studies the “Fungal Tree of life” as part of a
larger
project looking at the relationships of all life-forms

By RICHARD L. HILL, The Oregonian
An extraordinary three-way arms race is being waged down on the ant
farm.
Researchers, including an Oregon State University scientist, have
discovered that fungus-growing ants have co-evolved with the fungi
they cultivate for food and with a parasite that can infect the
fungi.
The scientists found that the ants and fungi are perpetually evolving
new ways to control parasitic fungal “weeds,” which in turn are
continually developing new ways to infect the ants’ fungus gardens.
The ants have been successfully fungus farming for the past 50
million years, according to the scientists, who report their findings
in the current issue of the journal Science.
“These ants have a very organized social system,” said Joseph W.
Spatafora, an OSU associate professor of botany and plant pathology
who participated in the study.
Attine ants, which include leaf-cutter ants, haul plant material to
their nest to feed and grow the fungus Lepiotaceae, a family of
mushrooms. When the hungry fungi are nourished, they produce
nutrient-rich structures that are eaten by the ants.
But like all farmers, the ants face a “weed” that attacks their
crops. In this case, the culprit is the microfungal parasite
Escovopis, which can reduce or destroy a fungal garden or ant colony.
The ants defend the fungus garden, weeding out infected fungi and
taking out the parasite’s spores. The ants also have in their defense
arsenal a bacterium that they cultivate on the outside of their
bodies. The bacteria produce an antibiotic that suppresses the growth
of the parasite. “We suspect that it’s going to turn out that this
antibiotic use also goes back to the beginning of ant agriculture,”
said Ted B. Schultz, a study participant who is an entomologist with
the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History.
Other researchers involved in the project, led by Cameron R. Currie
at the University of Kansas, are from the University of Toronto, the
University of Texas at Austin and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
They studied DNA sequences from the ants, garden fungi and the
parasitic fungal weeds to see how the co-evolutionary system evolved.
The collaboration is the result of a new series of research
initiatives by the National Science Foundation called “Assembling the
Tree of Life.” The project is aimed at producing a better
understanding of the evolutionary relationships by all the major
groups of life on Earth.
Spatafora, who has a $2.64 million grant from the foundation, is
leading a team of five laboratories at four institutions on
assembling
the “Fungal Tree of Life.” Scientists will study 1,500 species and
analyze DNA in one of the most comprehensive studies of fungi ever
conducted.

COMMENT BY POSTER: Many ant species cultivate Lepiotaceae, which
includes such common fungi as Macrolepiota rachoides. It’s
fascinating
to find an abandoned thatcher ant colony under Douglas-fir here in
the
PNW with large 8-12 inch diameter M. rachoides fruiting in abundance
from the pile of Douglas fir needles and twigs. Thatcher ants are so
industrious in this endeavor that they largely denude large areas of
ground from any spend needles, which can reduce the danger of fire
rapidly spreading in these areas. Unfortunately, the piles of needles
sometimes reaches over 4 feet, and in non-thinned tree stands can act
as a stepping stone for fire to enter the tree canopy.

Termites in Africa have a similar relationship to fungi called
Termitomyces.

Daniel B. Wheeler
http://www.oregonwhitetruffles.com

Interesting.
I always enjoy your posts Daniel.

*****

anf all this time I had no idea that it was Lepiota It sorta makes
sence now that I look at the evidence of what the ants harvest and
wat
lepiota eats .

****

An excellent post, which makes me think that the Myrmidons (“Ants”)
under
Axilles in the Iliad were mushroom cultivators, particularly since
Axilles
was the son of Peleus (pileus).

Would you have any links to the said researchers.


o8TY
“Daniel B. Wheeler” <dwheeler@…> wrote in message
news:6dafee1b.0301232345.7727108f@…
> From The Oregonian, Jan. 22, 2003, p A16 (SCIENCE)
>
> Ants engage in evolutionary war
> An OSU scientist studies the “Fungal Tree of life” as part of a
larger
> project looking at the relationships of all life-forms
>
> By RICHARD L. HILL, The Oregonian
> An extraordinary three-way arms race is being waged down on the ant
> farm.
> Researchers, including an Oregon State University scientist, have
> discovered that fungus-growing ants have co-evolved with the fungi
> they cultivate for food and with a parasite that can infect the
fungi.
> The scientists found that the ants and fungi are perpetually
evolving
> new ways to control parasitic fungal “weeds,” which in turn are
> continually developing new ways to infect the ants’ fungus gardens.
> The ants have been successfully fungus farming for the past 50
> million years, according to the scientists, who report their
findings
> in the current issue of the journal Science.
> “These ants have a very organized social system,” said Joseph W.
> Spatafora, an OSU associate professor of botany and plant pathology
> who participated in the study.
> Attine ants, which include leaf-cutter ants, haul plant material to
> their nest to feed and grow the fungus Lepiotaceae, a family of
> mushrooms. When the hungry fungi are nourished, they produce


“o8TY” <o8ty@…> wrote in message
news:<3e7c414e_1@…>…
> An excellent post, which makes me think that the Myrmidons
(“Ants”) under
> Axilles in the Iliad were mushroom cultivators, particularly since
Axilles
> was the son of Peleus (pileus).
Hmm. That does sound like more than just coincidence.
>
> Would you have any links to the said researchers.

No. But Joey Spatafora, one of the principals in the investigation,
is
at Oregon State University who has spoken at a few North American
Truffling Society meetings that I’ve attended.

I’m sure he has a webpage associated with the university, and you
should be able to email him directly.

Daniel B. Wheeler
http://www.oregonwhitetruffles.com


Daniel B. Wheeler” <dwheeler@…> wrote in message
news:6dafee1b.0303221227.763953c5@…
> “o8TY” <o8ty@…> wrote in message
news:<3e7c414e_1@…>…
> > An excellent post, which makes me think that the Myrmidons
(“Ants”)
under
> > Axilles in the Iliad were mushroom cultivators, particularly
since
Axilles
> > was the son of Peleus (pileus).
>
> Hmm. That does sound like more than just coincidence.
> >

It gets less coincidental when one considers that Pavsanias reported
Mukenai, the home of Agamemnon in the Iliad, to have been named
after a
mushroom, while Ovid in his Metamorphoses tells of an ancient myth
from
nearby Corinth (Ephyra) that “mortals were created from fungi,
nourished by
the rain”.

Also the thunderbolt of Zeus was called “keraunion” by the Greeks,
which was
also the name they gave to a particular kind of truffle.

> > Would you have any links to the said researchers.
>
> No. But Joey Spatafora, one of the principals in the
investigation, is
> at Oregon State University who has spoken at a few North American
> Truffling Society meetings that I’ve attended.
>
> I’m sure he has a webpage associated with the university, and you
> should be able to email him directly.
>
> Daniel B. Wheeler
Group: egodeath Message: 1484 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 23/03/2003
Subject: Reframing “HJ/no-HJ” as hi/lo degree of dependent focus
There is a bad theory of religion implicit in the typical historical-founder
assumption.

When someone affirms that “the historical Buddha existed” or “the historical
Jesus existed”, what is actually being asserted? An entire questionable
theory is implicitly asserted about where religions come from, how religions
work, what religions are about, how religions propagate, how they are
concentrated in certain influential individuals who then transform and focus
and re-propagate the religion.

It is true that select, particular individuals do serve to focus and define
religions. Consider the theorist Ken Wilber, for example. He is an actual
person who has worked hard to clarify and make viable the perennial
philosophy. The perennial philosophy is an essentially religious
philosophy — a theory about what occurs as the psyche develops to a fully
developed state and what the ultimate relationship is between the individual
and world or transcendent cosmos.

Does Christianity “come from” a single man, Jesus? What role does the
“historical Jesus” scenario assign to the postulated single man, Jesus?
Conversely, what role do the historical-Jesus deniers assign to, say, the
twenty most Jesus-like actual individuals? It is more subtle than even I
thought to distinguish between the historical Jesus theory and the
no-historical-Jesus theory.

It turns out that both scenarios are actually quite intricate and potentially
are highly qualified, to the point of actually overlapping. The historical
Jesus theory potentially has a surprisingly wide range of different scenarios,
and the no-historical-Jesus theory also potentially has a surprisingly wide
range, not a narrow range, of different scenarios.

I am coming to respect more fully the conclusion of some researchers in the
Jesus Mysteries discussion group, that the theory-categories of “historical
Jesus” and “no historical Jesus” are totally useless and contribute nothing
but harmful confusion. Everything hinges on what a researcher *means* by
“historical Jesus” or “no historical Jesus”.

We can only debate these scenarios if we establish an absolutely clear
definition of what we mean by those two labels, and I am finding that there is
a disarmingly wide range of discussion and debate involved in defining those
two labels. It is very difficult to form a good definition of what the
“historical Jesus” scenario essentially amounts to. It is very difficult to
form a good definition of what the “no-historical-Jesus” scenario essentially
amounts to.

Both scenarios potentially cover a vast range of different scenarios. There
is certainly not a single definitive historical Jesus scenario, nor a single
definitive no-historical-Jesus scenario. Both labels are totally meaningless
without an extended, subtle, and debatable definition. Yes, it is possible to
define an Exhibit A and an Exhibit B, to represent a reference point for the
prototypical historical-Jesus and no-historical-Jesus scenario.


The prototypical historical-Jesus scenario holds that there was only one man
who fit most of the important parts of the New Testament version of history.
Christianity is importantly dependent on that man, and unthinkable without
him; Christianity doesn’t make sense as religion or history without him.

The prototypical no-historical-Jesus scenario holds that there was only one
man who fit most of the important parts of the New Testament version of
history. Christianity is not dependent on any one man, and makes more sense
(as religion and history) without the complicating postulate of such a man.


According to “no-historical-founder” theories of the development of religions,
certain individuals do play an important role in some important but limited
sense. Here is where it immediately becomes very complicated, subtle, and
intractible. The development, origin, and spread of a religion does
importantly depend on the actions of some select, distinctive individuals.

Conventional thinking assumes Paul to have existed as such an individual; on
more solid ground, we should use Constantine as an example. The development
of Christianity is largely focused in the actual man, Constantine, as well as
Luther, for example. Is the development of Christianity largely focused in a
single man, who we may label “Jesus”, or in five or twenty more or less
Jesus-like men, such as rebel leaders (would-be military messiahs) or
spiritual teachers or hierophants?

We need a new theoretic construct such as “degree of dependent focus”. The
prototypical historical Jesus or historical Buddha theory implicitly asserts a
very high degree of dependent focus: the development and spread of the
religion is very importantly and significantly focused in just a single man
whose life and role was like that portrayed for the central founder-figure in
the scriptures.

In contrast, the prototypical no-historical-founder theory implicitly asserts
a very *low* degree of dependent focus: the development and spread of the
religion is *not* very importantly and significantly focused in just a single
man whose life and role was like that portrayed for the central founder-figure
in the scriptures. A problem I have found in surveying all possible
permutations of historical-founder and no-historical-founder scenarios is the
possibility of gradual degrees of shading from one scenario to its opposite.

The origin of Christianity could involve anywhere from one to an innumerable
number of actual Jesus-like men, with the role of a Jesus-like man ranging
anywhere from fitting all of the traditional story elements to only a single
story element, with any number of Jesus-like men fitting any number of the
Jesus story elements. We have an n-dimensional potential space of scenarios.

How helpful is it, really, to frame the search for true history in the
simplistic and inarticulate terms of “historical Jesus” versus
“no-historical-Jesus”? Many scholars now have unearthed some pathetic actual
man who fits a fraction of the Jesus story requirements, and absurdly, have
proudly pronounced that they have found at last “the genuine historical
Jesus”.

Readers then read the work and have to choose whether or not they feel this
scenario’s man qualifies as “the genuine historical Jesus”. When ten other
such books are considered, we see how utterly useless and purely confusing the
whole concept of “the historical Jesus” is.

It is profitable to discuss the merits of particular scenarios, but framing
the range of scenarios in terms of “historical Jesus” has proven problematic
and vague beyond redemption — however, it has led to finding that there is an
embarrassing overabundance of partially Jesus-like men, with no one single
Jesus-like man towering over the rest. Thus I see no alternative to
ultimately ending up with the construct, “degree of dependent focus”.

The problem with the prototypical historical Jesus theory is that it asserts a
very high degree of dependent focus that starkly contradicts the available
evidence, which indicates actually a *low* degree of dependent focus. Instead
of debating in terms of “historical Jesus” vs. “no historical Jesus”, it would
be far more useful and relevant to debate “high degree of dependent focus” vs.
“low degree of dependent focus”.

We can thus usefully and precisely characterize scholars who assert a
“historical Jesus” even though each scholar picks a different man, with a
different combination of classic Jesus attributes: those scholars really do
have something definite and distinctive in common: they all are characterized
by asserting a very high degree of dependent focus on a single central
Jesus-like man for the development and formation of the Christian religion.

Similarly, you can usefully and precisely characterize scholars who assert “no
historical Jesus” — what they actually all have in common, across their
highly divergent scenarios, is that they all are characterized by asserting a
very *low* degree of dependent focus on a single central Jesus-like man for
the development and formation of the Christian religion.

This construct of “high vs. low degree of dependent focus” concisely and
elegantly encapsulates, expresses, and implies everything that I have written
about the problem of the plethora of genuine historical Jesuses and about the
Jesus figure being “essentially and really” a *composite* drawn from a
deliberately extreme and all-encompassing *multitude* of actual men and
mythical figures.

That construct really hits the essence of the difference in thinking style
between the typical historical-Jesus asserters and the typical no-HJ
asserters, overcoming the difficult blurring fact that both camps admit the
existence of multiple (more or less numerous) actual Jesus-like men who were
more or less important. We need a sliding scale and a relevant polar axis.

The most powerful, relevant, useful, and general way of sorting out the
scholars is in terms of what degree they propose Christianity was dependent on
and focused in a single Jesus-like man. Thus in the end the most useful way
to define what we mean by “HJ vs. no-HJ”, or “historical Buddha vs.
no-historical-Buddha”, is in terms of degree of dependent focus.

What is the most essential implication someone makes when they say “there was
a historical Jesus” or “there was no historical Jesus”? How can we usefully
get to the essence of what kind of history that person is asserting? By
understanding the alternatives to be a high versus low degree of dependent
focus.

This reframing of the debate is highly useful even though it still leaves us
with a subtle debate about what it means for the formation of Christianity to
have been highly dependent on and focused in a single Jesus-like man.

I consider myth, correctly understood, to be the same thing as the highest
aspect of religion — this is what I mean by “myth-religion”: it is really,
most meaningfully and profoundly, allegory/metaphor for the intense mystic
altered state such as is triggered by sacred consumption of entheogens. The
elements of this view can all be wrapped up into the construct
“myth-religion-mysticism”.

The official, dominant, low theory of religion holds that religions have a
very high degree of dependent focus on a single historical central founder
figure to whom is attributed the origin of the religion; the religion is based
on the figure and comes from the figure; he is “the central founder figure”
upon whom the religion focuses and to whom the start of the religion is
attributed.

The religion is focused on him as founder; he is a personification of all that
the religion stands for. I here mean to shut out the Paul figure, who is
portrayed as a pillar of the Church, who propagated the religion, but Paul is
not the central figure upon whom the Christian religion is mainly focused.
The Christian is supposed to be somewhat Paul-like, but more importantly
Jesus-like.

The conventional view of Buddhism fits this definition too: while allowing for
previous and later Buddha-type historical men, Buddha is held to be a single
outstanding man upon whom Buddhism is highly dependent and on whom Buddhism is
highly focused. The theory of religious origins I dub “low” is that a
religion proceeds from its central founder figure.

The Christian religion came from Jesus; it is based on the life, teachings,
and actions of the man Jesus. Such a theory of where religion comes from and
what it’s about applies to the theory that the Isis and Osiris religion is
“based on” an actual historical Osiris; according to this way of thinking, for
the origin of the ancient Egyptian religion, there is a high degree of
dependent focus on the life and actions of the man Osiris.

The historical Jesus theory or historical Buddhism theory is not just
incorrect about facts of history; it is a bad theory of where myth-religion
comes from and what myth-religion is really about. Myth-religion in essence
has nothing to do with historical founding-figures, even when it is styled as
emphatically literal. Buddhism and Christianity have often been
hyper-literalized.

Religion really does have some literal elements; for example, the ancients
deliberately modelled actual politics and religion on myth-religion-mysticism,
and they deliberately formed mythic allegory in terms of actual politics and
religion. So yes, actual politics and religion *do* “match” the mythic
histories, but what is the nature of this “match”?

For example, I propose that not only was Christian myth-religion allegorically
based on actual crucifixion, but, in the spirit of ancient thinking,
crucifixion as a form of punishment was also deliberately based on mythic
allegory. The ancient mind deliberately strove to make myth and reality
closely match and comment upon each other, but this is not to be confused with
a “match” in the sense of the mythic history being historically factual.

Their myth and history were *mystically* the same, but not *literally* the
same. This is true for many near eastern religions, or religio-political
regimes, but particularly true in Jewish religion, which took the deliberate
conflation of national history and mythic allegory to as far an extreme as in
any religion. It is not a one-way arrow — that would be against the ancient
way of thinking.

It was a two-way arrow between mythic-mystic allegory and literal politics and
history: as above, so below. How should we think politically and
historically? Look to mystic-myth (archetypes encountered in the entheogenic
intense mystic altered state) for the answer. How should we think mythically,
mystically, and allegorically, in religion? Look to the realm of politics and
history for the answer.

The domains of mystic myth and actual history and politics were used to inform
and guide and justify each other. This interaction of two domains is the only
possible way to fully account for both the literal historical style and
elements in, say, Revelation, as well as the mystic-mythic allegory-domain.
Literalism, or perhaps quasi-literalism, is essential and basic in the Jewish
scriptures, but so is mystic-mythic thinking.

Certainly both domains are present, but we take literalism much too literally
and need a better understanding of how these two domains work together and
interpenetrate even while remaining distinct. Yes, the Jewish scriptures are
full of literalism, in several senses, but they are not simply literalism —
more like a quasi-literalistic way of writing, reporting on quasi-literalistic
practices — a subtle but all-important difference from plain and simple
literalist writing about literalist practice.

The Jewish writings are an integrated historical-styled and mystical-styled
mode of writing about a integrated historical-styled and mystical-styled
religion — full of literalism, and yet, not literalist, just
literalist-styled. Same with Christianity: it was largely created as a
literalist styled religion; that was perhaps the main contribution from the
Jewish religion, that hyper-literalist yet still just ironically *quasi-*
literalist mode of writing and practice.

Christianity was the offspring formed by fusing many god-man Hellenistic
elements with the quasi-literalist styling of Jewish religion. Yes, many Jews
and Christians were literalists, but many of the most important were not.

Even our category of “literalism versus mythic allegory” may be a poor fit
with that character of ancient thinking, which operated more in the mythic
realm because it was highly informed by the entheogenic intense mystic altered
state.

Literalism was used as a style of religion, and surely most people were sober
and rational and could hardly deny the concrete reality they had to constantly
deal with, but compared to moderns with our various combinations of modern
mundane reality and absurd supernaturalism, the ancients instead drew from the
realms of a mundane world that was considered in light of mystic-state
allegory, and from mystic-state allegory that was based on the mundane world.

The ancients saw the world in terms of two mirrors that reflected each other:
the sociopolitical world and the mystic-state allegory realm. Moderns instead
view the world by an unrelated pair of frames: the mundane, lacking any input
from the mystic allegory realm, and the free-floating magical-supernatural
realm, without a feel for mystic-experiencing allegory.

When modern supernaturalists say that Jesus existed, they are combining
non-mystical supernaturalist thinking which the ancient mystic mythmakers
didn’t use, together with an isolated mundane view of the world which the
ancients didn’t use. Our modern categories of thought don’t fit with the
ancient categories of thought, because our mundane world isn’t informed by
mythic mystic-state allegory understood as such.

For those who assert a low degree of dependent focus of a religion on the
historical existence of its central founder figure, there can be in principle
no evidence that is simple evidence for the existence of the founding figure,
because evidence for the existence of a man who is like the founder figure is
not evidence for a high degree of dependence on that particular man.

Thus people who assert a low or high degree of dependent focus hold two
different models of how religions rise and spread, and these two models handle
historical evidence in two different ways.

To assert a low degree of dependence of a religion on a historical central
founder is to assert that religions rise and spread based on the lives and
actions of many people whose lives are somewhat like the idealized central
founder figure, with no one man being exclusively important as the central,
towering person — and therefore, any evidence that may be found, literary or
archaological, for a man who is like the founder figure, will be interpreted
as merely evidence for one among many men whose lives are like that of the
idealized central founder figure.

A key question for debaters to consider is, what sort of evidence can cause a
scholar to change their adherence from one framework of interpretation to the
other? In this case, we must ask what sort of evidence can cause a scholar
who asserts a low degree of dependence of Christianity on a single historical
man to change their mind and assert a high degree of dependence?

What would compel me to say “I change my mind: this new discovery is strong
evidence that Christianity was, it turns out, highly dependent on a single,
central, Jesus-like man”? It would have to be evidence not only that a man
existed who fit the Jesus life story elements, but that *only a single* man
fit the story so well; evidence that one man fit the story much better than
anyone else and that the formation of Christianity is importantly dependent on
this single man and only on this single man.

What would compel a historical-Jesus asserter to say “I change my mind: this
new discovery is strong evidence that Christianity wasn’t, it turns out,
highly dependent on a single, central, Jesus-like man”? It would have to be
evidence that no one man existed who fit the Jesus life story elements far
more than any other man. It would have to be evidence that the formation of
Christianity was *not* importantly dependent on any single man.

The evidence from the no-HJ books, and even from the conventional HJ-asserting
scholars, adds up to just such a demonstration: it is clear by now that the
formation of Christianity was not importantly dependent on a single man who
was Jesus-like and who was far more Jesus-like than any other man. Scholars
now have found a hundred good reasons why Christianity started, but many of
the reasons and scenarios don’t depend on the existence of just one lone man
with a uniquely Jesus-like life.

The current evidence supports the hypothesis of a *low* degreee of dependent
focus of Christian origins on a single man, not a *high* degree of focal
dependence. Yes, the *claim* of originating from a single man has often been
a powerful advantage for some Christian officials, and we could say that the
success of Christianity sometimes depended on the *claim* of originating from
a single historical central founder-figure.

But an important dependence on the *claim* of literal historicity is quite
different than important dependence on the *actuality* of literal historicity.
Some weak thinkers have said that “Christianity wasn’t a Hellenistic
mystery-religion, because Hellenistic mystery-religions don’t literalize their
mythic founder-figures.”

That’s true, but considering the Jewish religion as being an unusually
literalist-styled, historical/political-styled myth-religion, we can now
recognize Christianity as a powerful fusion of the Hellenistic godman
mystery-religion with the Jewish literalist-styled,
historical/political-styled myth-religion. Christianity took the godman and
initiation themes and techniques of Hellenistic religion and added the
quasi-literalist, historical/political-styled techniques and themes from
Jewish religion.

Christianity was a new Hellenistic mystery-religion that *did* literalize its
mythic founder-figures — that literalization, that breaking the rule against
literalization, was precisely what gave this Jewish-Hellenistic hybrid a
competitive advantage over the purely mythic-styled Hellenistic religions.

According to the Church officials, Christianity was superior to Hellenistic
religion because Christianity had *literally as well as*
mythically/mystically, what the Hellenistic religions had *only*
mythically/mystically. Christianity won because it was based on a literal
godman — but to clarify, it won because it was based on the *claim of* being
founded by and founded on a literal godman.

In actuality, Jewish religion provided various combinations of literal and
allegorical messiahs; in this sense, there really was a historical
God-ordained Jesus or twenty of them. We must also remember the similarity of
the emperor cult, divine kings, apotheosis of heroes, and the battle between
King Pentheus and the godman Dionysus — all providing various combinations of
themes about kings, godmen, saviors, historical individuals, and mythic
figures.

The figure of Jesus was designed to strategically fuse all of these into a
single figure who wrapped up into one all the value of historical men such as
Alexander and Caesars, with all the value of the dying-and-rising mythic
godmen, with all the value of the quasi-historical Jewish priest and prophets
and the actual Jewish would-be messiahs. The problem was how to fabricate a
figure even more potent than Caesar, even more potent and universal than the
calculated and synthetic figure of Sarapis.

It was a no-holds-barred utimate battle of extreme competitive
hyper-apotheosis, practically an arms race to create the ultimate nuclear
weapon of cosmic hyper-transcendent divinity combined with all the most
venerated attributes of all historical figures — *many* historical figures
and Jesus-like men and Alexander-like men and heroic warriors, wrapped up into
one figure, who was later only threatened, I surmise, by the counter-venerated
eternal cosmic goddess figure of Mary, Mother of God and Queen of Heaven.


— Michael Hoffman
http://www.egodeath.com — simple theory of the ego-death and rebirth
experience
Group: egodeath Message: 1485 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 23/03/2003
Subject: Trajectories of bands that discover LSD
>Another AMG album review that might hit you closer to home would be the
[insultingly low] 2 [of 5]
>stars allotted to Rush’s Fly By Night, Caress of Steel and Grace
>Under Pressure. I’m currently working on an album review site that
>has some sort of perspective related to the music itself,
>disregarding everything but that, the music. It’s hard work,
>though, dismissing all experiences and approaching each review with
>just the single album in mind.
>
>-greg


When I wrote the previous posting, I was thinking of Caress of Steel, which
certainly deserves 5 stars and is one of the most important, profound, and
inspired albums by this mystic-state philosophy band. The highly acclaimed
follow-up album 2112 rests directly on the foundation of Caress of Steel. The
album ratings I’ve seen have given me a hypothesis that the actual best album
is usually the one prior to the highest-rated album.

I tend to like a band best before the critics do — before the band becomes
popular and hits it big. I imagine this trajectory: a band puts out a
mediocre, uninspired album or two. Then the band discovers LSD, and there are
a couple uninspired allusions to LSD phenomena. Then the band experiences ego
death and discovers the tradition of double-entendre allusion in High Classic
Rock lyrics, and puts out an album that is far more informed by the full range
of entheogenic phenomena.

On the next album, the technique of double-entendre is becoming routine, and
the thematic material of mystic-state phenomena alluded to is no longer really
growing; it’s not an area of major discovery — like pattern-finding in
myth-religion after cracking the code and “all knowledge has been revealed”,
the rate of noveltry drops off after a year and a half.

The classic Acid Rock lyrical techniques decline over the next few albums, and
finally remain in further albums purely out of respect. This is why I have
smelled the most intense, fresh, worthwhile studies being in the first few
albums a band puts out after discovering LSD — such as Rush during the late
1970s and early 1980s, but not the late 1980s and 1990s, which has the
material but as a routinized echo of the original inspirational explosion.


— Michael Hoffman
http://www.egodeath.com — simple theory of the ego-death and rebirth
experience
Group: egodeath Message: 1486 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Re: Mapping this theory to high-level Buddhism
>Secondly, Buddhism avoid making statements such as “this exists” or
>this “doesn’t exist.” as in the 34 negations above. This is the
>Middle Way. In generaL, high Buddhism, would then say, “there is
>neither “free will,” nor is there “no-free-will,” a understanding
>that needs to be bridged first before one can apply your thoery in a
>technically correct way. Ths Middle Way principle is not a
>compromise. In this sense, adapting various theories to this
>principle becomes techncially difficult and one must understand the
>high Buddhsit understanding of general and specific.”
>
>To further clarify this, here is a short passage of Chih-I (tien-
>t’ai the Great) from the Moho Chi Kuan (contemplation and and
>observation):
>
>states:
>
>”It is easy for a sticky hand to adhere, and hard to awaken from deep
>dreaming. Some people seal up a text and restrict its sense,
>declaring their own personal understanding of it to be right. They
>vie with others to seize tiles and pebbles, thinking they are
>baubles of lapis luzuli. Even the most familiar things and explicit
>statements they fail to understand; how could they not but err when
>it comes to the abstruse principle and hidden teaching? This is why
>it is necessary to discuss “the returning to the purport.”
>
>dc

This sounds like my strong focus on “networks of word meanings” and the phrase
“in what sense does X exist?” More useful than asking whether the historical
Jesus existed or not, it’s better to ask “in what exact sense did Jesus
historically exist?” Instead of vaguely asking “Our our choices free, or not
free?”, we must ask “In what exact sense are our choices free?” Instead of
asking “Does ego exist, or not?”, the only way to make progress in
understanding is to ask rather, “In what sense does ego exist, and it what
sense does ego not exist? That is, what exactly is the nature of ego?”

— Michael Hoffman
Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 1487 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Acid Rock lyrics: remote cueing across verses
Early in this discussion group I posted an analysis of Bohemian Rhapsody —
very heavy ego-death/acid mysticism allusions. I consider Queen one of the
groups that has a full grasp of the entheogen rock religion, but prefers to
write isolated songs focusing on that subject.

Rush, as a philosophy group ought, chooses to allude to the subject more
consistently or relentlessly throughout their albums, particularly their
classic-era albums Caress of Steel through Grace Under Pressure (mid-1970s to
mid-1980s).

Black Sabbath treated LSD religion as a substantial but not emphasized portion
of their drug-alluding Heavy Rock scope — Ozzy’s first two solo albums,
however, emphasized LSD, according to my interpretation. I have heard that
LSD was used routinely by many bands as part of lyric writing; I suspect that
was a trick of the trade, used for albums such as one by the Cars.

There is a distribution of acid-mysticism allusions at the level of a band, an
album, a song, or a verse — at any level there may be a high density of
allusions. One technique is to insert a verse dense with allusions into a
song that otherwise is innocent of such allusions. Metallica’s For Whom the
Bell Tolls, Cheap Trick’s Way of the World. This verse is a key suggesting
reading the remaining lyrics in their mystical sense, though the other lyrics
are not themselves filled with dense allusions.

That is like a mundane-state, ordinary song about flying in airplanes, with
the middle verse switching to overtly double-coded meaning such as “a trip so
high, visions before my eye”, which would then switch the meaning of the other
lyrics too. This is the theory or principle of remote cueing. Suppose only
half of the verses in Caress of Steel are, considered in isolation, clearly
entheogenic, and the other verses are no more entheogenic than any straight
lyrics would randomly happen to be.

Yet considered as a whole, the entire album and all its lyrics would demand to
be interpreted entheogenically, even the average verses, due to the presence
in the package of the strongly entheogenic verses. This formula makes great
sense, more so than proposing, say, an entire album with just one verse meant
to be heard in its entheogenic sense, because if the listener is in a 12-hour
altered-state session, the mind will be in the encoding/decoding state for all
of the verses, not just for one song.

Album-oriented rock started as trip soundtrack rock. Single-oriented acid
rock was impractical, because LSD lasts 12 hours, while a pop-sike single
lasts only 3-1/2 minutes.
Group: egodeath Message: 1488 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Nirvana, metaphor, kingdom of heaven
>Nirvana=This has a number of meanings, depending on how it is meant
>in either low or high Buddhism. The literal term, actually
>means “death,” or “extinction,” and referred to a goal of early
>buddhism, to free oneself from the cycle of birth and death, which
>was already the goal of the hindus……but in high mahayana
>(Saddharma Pundarika) it was revealed that the teaching
>of “Nirvana,” was actually a “Secret and Skillful Means of the
>Buddha.” I already quoted the applicable passages in previous posts
>and I told the story of the “Transient Castle,” where the analogy of
>a leader of travelers conjures up a Castle to inspire the travelers
>to keep going to the goal and later it is discovered that the Castle
>was an illusion and then the real goal is revealed. This is a
>fundamental principle of high Mahayana. Another Buddhist term
>is “The Expedient means of Nirvana” means the “Expedient means of
>Death,” wherein not only are expedients used by wise buddhas to
>teach the law, but even nature itself, provides an “secret”
>expedient means.


This reminds me of an animated ad showing a man floating back and forth in
sitting meditation 9 inches above the ground. It that how I picture
enlightenment? Not at all, but perhaps it is comparable to how I felt when I
made sense of the construct of “kingdom of God” in terms of no-free-will, Nov.
14, 2001, enabling me to finally form a systematic interpretation of
Christianity that fit with my since-1988 core model of block-universe
determinism.

I had episodically experienced the return of the messiah and entering the
kingdom of God before, even connecting it with the no-free-will concept (this
was part of the “grand forking path” insight), but didn’t yet secure a
complete, systematic interpretation.

Upon finally attaining a complete, systematic interpretation, for a few days I
was in heaven, in nirvana, not in the sense of being in a mystic altered state
while comprehending the metaphors, but rather, just being in the normal state
of consciousness but having a scientific/theoretic breakthrough experience by
reflecting on the experiences and insights of the mystic altered state and
reflecting upon how mystic-state metaphor works as a clever systematic
meaning-puzzle.

In this sense, my full ascension into heaven didn’t occur in the mystic
altered state, but was heavily informed by the insights of the mystic altered
state, including insights about networks of word-meanings.

The promise of entering a castle-like heaven, as in the book of Revelation,
can be an expedient means. Attaining a transformed, higher-coherence
worldmodel is like attaining a castle, entering a kind of blissful nirvana,
ascending to heaven in the company of the saints. The castle could be
considered real, as a certain kind of castle.

Alan Watts is too much of a poet without explaining himself explicitly: in the
book The Way of Zen, he likes saying enlightenment is nothing to be gained,
but while true in a certain sense, I maintain that enlightenment is something
to be gained by the mind: a higher, more coherent worldmodel in addition to
the mind’s previous worldmodel.

I completely reject the notion that expedient means is an option that works
better than explicit explanation of the principles of enlightenment. The most
expedient means are entheogens, combined with teaching rational explicit
systematic principles, combined with teaching how mystic/mythic/religious
metaphor works as a poetic encoding/decoding system.

— Michael Hoffman
Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 1489 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Demons’ animal aspect; goat-man; donkey & rider
Demons are drawn so as to emphasize their animal aspects. A demon is
essentially portrayed as an intelligent being that is like an animal in
essence and is like a degraded mode of a human. A demon is a lower,
animalized person. Animals, like humans under the ego delusion, take free
will and self-moving agency for granted – it’s how things appear in nature.

Children learn the egoic worldmodel first, naturally — this makes sense. It
is a simple and useful way of thinking and mode of perceiving and experiencing
the world and oneself. However, what makes humans greater than animals is
intelligence, and intelligence contains divine potential in that it can
blossom into the transcendent worldmodel. Humans, unlike animals, have
religion.

The human during their childish, animalistic period before initiation has a
degraded form of religion, but this too transforms into transcendent religion
when intelligence blossoms into transcendent knowledge, in which the animal
way of viewing the world is transcended both in experience and in systematic
conceptual thinking.

The altered-state experience is shared by animals and occurs before
intellectual enlightenment or “regeneration”; the altered state raises
questions and tensions and cognitive dissonances that are eventually reasoned
through, during the transformation from the egoic to the transcendent
worldmodel.

The egoic mode of thinking is a child-animal mode. Both the child and the
animal as symbols are variable. A child can represent foolish ignorant ego,
or the next generation of the mind after ego has been transcended. The goat
is a symbol of egoic freewill assumption, while the sheep is a symbol of
transcendent no-free-will thinking. To portray the egoic way of thinking,
animalesque demons work better than showing children.

Of the commonly known animals, the best animal to portray egoic delusion is
the willful goat, which is why the leader of the deluded people is a goat-man,
the devil, the Prince of Pride. The donkey is usually a more respectful
mockery of egoic thinking, because it faithfully carries the higher mind to
the point of enlightenment, like Balaam’s faithful ass who successfully brings
the seer Balaam to the angel of death (ego-death enlightenment) and then
halts, rebuking Balaam’s criticism. “The Balaam’s eyes were opened… I will
speak only the words that God puts in my mouth.”

— Michael Hoffman
Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 1490 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Re: Further Buddhist terms
I recall there are 3 turnings of the wheel of the law, like 3 ways of
conceiving merit, such as the egoic conception of merit and system of merit,
the intermediate scheme of merit, and the transcendent conception of merit.


>Other most important factors and terms of high Mahayana Buddhism,
>which is applicable to a entheogenic theory, for later explanation:
>
>1. Three Bodies of the Buddha
>2. Ichinen Sanzen
>3. General and Specific Transmission
>4. Three Great Secret Laws
>
>But this will have to wait for another day.
>
>dc
Group: egodeath Message: 1491 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Bible record is true
>Of course the Bible record is true and trustworthy. Therefore anything else
must be considered rebellious speculation and highly disrespectful at that.

>Regards, J. S.
> (God’s eternal Love)
> Matthew 11:6


The Bible record is true and trustworthy when read in a certain way, with
certain meanings taken literally and other meanings interpreted allegorically.
Holding to anything other than the Bible’s correct meaning is rebellious and
disrespectful speculation. It is sinful to wrongly divide the scriptures,
misreading the Bible according to one’s own interpretation rather than that
given by the Holy Spirit and the tradition of the true Church.

— In Christ,
Michael
Group: egodeath Message: 1492 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Idolatrous, self-fabric. relig. of lit’ist “Christians”
The idolatrous, arbitrary, and self-fabricated religion that is invented by
literalist, self-labelled “Christians”


>Of course the Bible record is true and trustworthy. Therefore anything else
must be considered rebellious speculation and highly disrespectful at that.


The Bible record is true and trustworthy when read in a certain way, with
certain meanings taken literally and other meanings interpreted allegorically.
Holding to anything other than the Bible’s correct meaning is rebellious and
disrespectful speculation. It is sinful to wrongly divide the scriptures,
misreading the Bible according to one’s own interpretation rather than that
given by the Holy Spirit and the tradition of the true Church.

Christians who make an idolatrous religion of literalism don’t even believe
their own, hypocritical words, their declarations of pure literalist belief.
They *pretend* to be a believer in the Bible, and claim to read all the
historical aspects in a pure and faithfully literal way. This illusion can
only be sustained by avoiding engaging with the text and by staying in the
realm of vagueness — such a religion is a religion of fearful vagueness and
fog, despite its effort at committing to concretistic thinking.

It is a way of approaching scripture that is accepts some vague imagined “pure
literalist” reading and attributes that reading to the surrounding crowds and
imagined authority figures, but the fact that such a stance is incapable of
debating specific points regarding the historical versus metaphorical aspects
of scripture indicates such religionists are full of self-doubt and unable to
debate rationally.

Self-labelled “Christians” who preach the gospel of
salvation-through-pure-literalism are only capable of making empty, vague
faith statements, which amount to nothing and communicate nothing.

The supposedly pure literalists preach a Gospel of meaningless adherence to
some supposedly concrete, but actually wispy and unspecified literalism — do
they even *know* what they believe, and why? They claim to believe in a
gospel of literalism, but are they able to be more specific than that, or
would that strain the content of their weak-on-content “faith” past the
breaking point? “I believe… in blind acceptance of literalist orthodoxy.”

It would be better to believe in the truth about the savior, whatever that
truth actually is, without building one’s house of faith on a sandy foundation
of vague, unspecified “pure, faithful” literalism.

Christianity based on a refusal to consider the possible anti-literalist
meaning of the history aspects of scripture is a religion of
responsibility-evading literalist assumption, a hastily fabricated
preconception pulled out of one’s own mind, that is no Christian faith at all,
but just an arbitrary fabrication of one’s own version of what one labels
“Christian faith”.

Contentless, unspecified, committed literalism is idolatry, worshipping a
savior made with one’s own hands. That false, man-made Gospel is filled with
groundless a-priori assumptions about what the right way is to read the holy
scriptures. These false and content-averse Christians pull the assumption out
of thin air that literalism is the righteous way to read the history aspects
of the scriptures.

They think they are safely with the crowd they can trust in. On the contrary,
many claim to follow Jesus but are not recognized by him as his elect sheep.
How can they be sure that a literalist reading of the history aspects of the
scriptures is wise instead of foolish? Their blind, arbitrary, overly
self-trusting assumption of literalism, pulled out of thin air by their own
sinful preconception about what the scriptures ought to be about, is a
rebellious speculation.

Christians who place their salvation on a foundation of supposedly pure
literalism should call into question their prideful assumptions and consider
that they may be completely mistaken. Who are these investigation-fearing
beginner Christians, that they presume to judge what is a respectful reading
of holy writ, and what is not? The humble followers of Christ should worship
the truth however it is found in the canonical scriptures.

Those who are quick to worship the idol of a historical literalist
interpretation of the scriptures fancy that they “respect” the scriptures by
reducing them down to their own sinful, idolatrous, hazy and unspecified
literalist revision of them, and then shy away from admitting that they are
sitting in judgement over the scriptures, picking and choosing which passages
to read as literal history and which to read as allegorical.

Those self-labelled “Christians” who imagine and assume that they can be pure
by uncritical adoption of a consistent literalist reading of the history
aspects of scripture ought to come clean and admit that we are all burdened
with the responsibility for interpreting the historical aspects of the
scriptures; there is no escape, not even by trying to deceive oneself and
pretending not to interpret.

The unspecified “purely literal” interpretation of the history aspects of
scripture is still one’s own personal interpretation; there is no escape. You
will be cast into the fire or admitted into heaven based on whether you read
the scriptures with your eyes opened by the Holy Spirit or with your eyes
clouded by the animal thinking of the deceiving demons. Salvation depends on
our stance toward the scriptures.

Is a “pure, literalist, respectful” stance toward the scriptures righteous, or
is it an incoherent abomination — how can we know, without the regeneration
provided by the Holy Spirit? Is a pure, literalist stance toward the
scriptures even possible at all, or a monstrous self-contradiction that is
the worst insult possible toward the divine Word? Is it actually good to
erect a religion of commitment to a pure literalist interpretation of the
scriptures?

If so, how can we do so, when the literalist readings contradict each other,
and when scripture so often warns us to carefully interpret it? On what
grounds can we base our religion on the *assumption* that a literalist reading
is the surest foundation?

How can anyone know that the most “respectful” reading of scripture is some
“pure”, extreme literalism — when such “purity” remains vague and
unspecified, through an evasive cop-out? Do the self-proclaimed “purely
faithful literalist” interpreters of scripture really believe their invented
fantasy that the crowd of authorities around them confidently asserts a
literalist reading of the history aspects of the canonical scriptures?

They cannot fool themselves convincingly, and so project their doubt onto
other people around them, harboring pride in the “purity” of their “faith”,
while seeing doubt all around them — their own secret doubt about their own
arbitrary, idolatrous assumption that a “pure” literalist interpretation is
possible and holy.

The self-proclaimed “pure” worshippers of literalism enjoy the righteous mood
of their own invented religion of “pure, faithful” literalism, even though it
feels shallow and spiritually unfulfilling and ultimately disappointing. But
pure and perfect literalism is impossible as well as unsatisfying, and is only
viable as long as one refrains from serious engagement with the text, seeking
to rightly divide the scriptures.

“Pure” historical literalist reading of the scriptures an imaginary position
imagined by the shallow lifestyle-only Christians. When one actually
investigates the scriptures and critically thinks about the history aspect in
them, “pure” historical literalism disintegrates into a meaningless position
that isn’t held by any theologians or Christian scholars.

It’s a shallow, willful delusion to think that one can rest confidently in a
religion of “principled faithful literalism”, a religion not of Jesus Christ
and the Holy Spirit but instead a religion of historical literalism which
insults the word of God by reducing it to a mundane history book.

“I doubt my faith. How can I know I’m among God’s elect? I know — instead
of being faithful about God, instead I will be faithful to a perfect and pure
literalist reading of the history aspects of the holy scriptures.” Is
Christianity essentially a religion of reporting literal history? On what
grounds can one assume such an interpretation? And what does religion really
have to do with history reporting?

Can Christian faith and a righteous stance toward scripture be conceived as
belief in a purely literalist reading of Christian scripture as history? Can
one even coherently read Christian scripture as literalist history, or does an
attempt at this form of faith immediately collapse when prodded and examined
critically? Isn’t the historical literalism reading of the scriptures exactly
what Paul disparages as childish things that the adult needs to put away, mere
beginner’s Christianity?

Christianity today has been degraded to imbecilic historical literalism
combined with irrational emotionalism and magical superstition — there is no
salvation in that way of reading the scriptures, or perhaps refusing to read
the scriptures. In that stance is no regeneration, no wisdom, just the
religion of fools, founded on sand. Many say they follow Jesus, but he does
not know them; they are of the devil, the prince of pride, the self-willed
goat-man.

Literalists try to let other people tell them what the righteous way is of
reading the Bible. They are apprehensive of what they call “speculation”, yet
they speculate and arbitrarily assume that their soul is saved by following
the *interpretation* given to them by the crowds who are walking through the
wide and apparently easy gate. They deny that they are speculating and
pulling assumptions about the scriptures out of thin air.

What do *they* know about reading and interpreting the Bible? Have they ever
even *heard* of mysticism? Do they know what allegory is? Does their
Christian bookstore sell Christian-styled self-help books for devils in Sunday
dress, or books that contain the wisdom of the saints and the saved, the true
sheep of Jesus?

Did it occur to the worshippers of dogmatic literalism that there are many
ways of reading “the Bible record” and that how one reads scripture is a
choice that the sinner must make in fear and trembling?

The literalist strive to commit their souls to a literalist faith and demonize
the critical mind. They must work hard to avoid allowing into consciousness
the realization that few or no Christian scholars and theologians assert that
every historical aspect in the “Bible record” is true. It takes a will of
iron to avoid admitting to oneself that the entire problem is a matter of
*which* Bible records are true.

How do the vague and evasive, supposedly “pure and consistent” literalists
propose that we determine which Bible records are literally historically true,
and which aren’t? On what foundation do they assert that we have to choose
one or the other: that one must accept some vague “the Bible record is true”
belief (whatever that is supposed to mean) or else, as the only other possible
option, be “disrespectful”?

Is their invented form of religion so delicate, their faith so weak and
phantasmal, that they insist that the scriptures must not be interpreted, but
only literally believed as vulgar and mundane historical records — despite
what the scriptures themselves say about requiring interpretation?

Why should one assume that critical reading of the “Bible record” is
inherently disrespectful? The mystics have greater respect for the Bible than
anyone. To not read critically and interpretively is truly disrespecting the
scriptures, and dishonoring them by reading them in accordance to how the
mind-averse crowds decide, in mob-like fashion.


The true gospel is a metaphorical expression of the following core philosophy,
which accords with much of Reformed dogmatics.

The most common-sense plausible model of the world and of transcendent
knowledge is that all religion is essentially mythic, not literalist, and that
the main purpose, origin, and nature of myth is to allegorically and
metaphorically express the transcendent insights and experiences of the
intense mystic altered state. The mystic state is the state of loose
cognition enabling revising mental-construct matrixes.

The main, ultimate experience and insight of the loose-cognition state is the
experience (sense, feeling) of no-free-will and no-separate-self, combined
with an easy and natural mental perception of a worldmodel that is plainly
coherent, involving re-conceiving time as frozen, with all of the mind’s
future thoughts already preexisting in a single fixed track.

This mental perception of this worldmodel is natural, coherent, plausible, and
plain to see; once constructed by the exploring mind, that mental worldmodel
would require more mental work to doubt than to accept.

The transcendent move of the mind also involves not only seeing that
worldmodel, but also requires an unfamiliar act of *deliberately* choosing to
believe or pretend to believe, what the mind no longer can easily believe,
that the ego is in control of its future thoughts and wields the power of free
will, as a sovereign, prime-mover control-agent.

The irony of transcendent rationality is that after overthrowing the delusion
of individual free will and separate self, for purely practical reasons, the
mind must now, God-like, deliberately pretend and retain and embrace what you
use to uncritically take for granted but can no longer rationally accept:
conceiving of a worldmodel built around the notion of self-controlling,
free-willing egoic agency.

The mind must learn to do consciously and insincerely what it previously did
naturally in its former animal/child state: engage a worldmodel based around
the separate-self, open-future assumption.

A hundred aspects of this model intensely contradict today’s accustomed ways
of thinking and regarding models as “plausible”. But this model and
explanation is remarkably unassailable, and when researched, turns out to have
massive evidential and traditional support from many philosophers,
theologians, and mystics, and scholars. The very *heart* of myth and religion
is the mystic altered state and no-free-will, and emphatically *not*
literalist religion.

By far the most sober and common-sense plausible model of transcendent mystic
insight is that religion is firmly centered around intense mystic
altered-state experiencing, firmly centered around no-free-will as experience
and irresistibly coherent and natural worldmodel, and not at all centered
around literalist thinking, hazy spiritualism, and mundane ethics.

This theory is dirt-simple, easy to express, easy to experience and mentally
perceive in the state of loose cognition, and we ought to have very good
reason before rejecting its plausibility in favor of the alternative, which is
no religion at all (mundane ethics), or complete haze and fog (New Age-style
vague spirituality and tranquil meditationism), or vulgar magic-thinking and
supernatural superstition (literalist religion).


— In Christ,
Michael
Group: egodeath Message: 1493 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Re: Defining “high-level” theory of myth, archetypes, astrotheology
>This system of concepts extends beyond concepts very effectively by
>proposing an experiential method that is extremely potent and
>reliable: using entheogens to produce a state of loose cognition, so
>that the mind can consider the concepts at the same time as
>experiencing the mystic state of sensing and perception. Only in
>that sense do I agree that rationality is somehow insufficient to
>the task of “communicating” religious insight.
>
>I can agree that the fullest religious insight requires both
>experiencing *and* intellectually comprehending phenomena such as
>the sense of no-free-will or no-separate-self.
>
>Let the plant teacher teach experientially at the same time as the
>human teacher teaches the intellectual principles and concepts. What
>we have to date is only half a teaching team: some people are taught
>by the plant teacher but have no good human teacher; others are
>taught by a human teacher but have no plant teacher. Both teachers
>are needed, in conjunction
_________

dc wrote:

>The percentage of people who could be convinced by theory, is a very
>tiny percentage. The primary problem is the illegality of
>entheogens. Thus I believe that the primary focus should be using
>all information available from all sources, to prove the basic truth
>that enthogen use is religious in nature and the laws prohibiting
>their religious use violates the constitutional principle
>of “Freedom of Religion.” This needs to be the primary focus of any
>attempt to enlighten others to the amazing function of entheogens.


My primary focus is to combine selected parts of today’s leading-edge theories
about philosophy, religion, and entheogenis into a coherent and ergonomic
theory of transcendent knowledge. I won’t waste any time reinventing the
wheel trying to convince the skeptics that entheogens are effective, or
proving that they are present in classic religion.

My entire effort is focused on effectively designing a framework that enables
combining what the other theorists have already argued regarding ideas such as
no-free-will, entheogens in classic religion, and the non-literalist nature of
religion. Whenever possible, I try to do only the work of combining other
theorists’ work, not reinventing it or convincing skeptics.

My strategy is to convince by making available a framework that enables the
ideas to cohere on their own. Other researchers have already shown the
viability of tenseless time, classic religious use of entheogens, and other
uncommon knowledge. My work is entirely a matter of taking these leading-edge
fields for granted and instead, just showing how it is possible to fit them
together by selecting an appropriate framework.

Never focus on convincing and persuading; only quietly demonstrate the
possibility of a coherent framework. Forget people and affecting their
thinking; instead, focus on the framework itself. That’s the spirit that
leads pure theory. I only want to let people know that it is possible to
easily fit these ideas together coherently by using this framework.

As a wholly distinct concern, I advocate or at least support drug policy
reform. This distinction is like theology versus mission-work, or private
faith versus good social works. This is the darkest hour for drug policy
reform, and the new day may well be upon us at any time. There are reasons to
hope. It is understandable, the thought of giving up hope.

The world is beyond hope, deluged by evil on all sides. But somehow, there is
still hope; things could get worse but things could get better. There must be
some viable game plan toward a better, truer world. Even David Icke has the
audacity and gumption to hope, and he reminds people that despite “the
system”, when you add up the potential of each individual person to shape the
world and work together, that adds up to a great deal of potential that should
be able to improve things.

Theoretically, it is possible for people to change the way things are, and
people should keep that individual and collective responsbility and potential
in mind.

The task is certainly not to inform the committed prohibitionist leaders that
entheogens are benign or constitutionally legit — how can we teach them what
they already know? The misguided reformers spend their ammunition fighting on
that false battlefront. Reformers ought to follow the money instead —
prohibition is entirely a matter of paychecks for the professional predatory
prohibitionists.

No one who matters actually believes that entheogens are bad and warrant
prohibition — instead, it’s all nothing but ploy and paycheck strategy,
prohibition purely for profit on the part of the false saviors. The flaw of
the reformers is playing the game straight, when it’s actually a completely
fake game, total extreme propaganda, taxpayer-supported.

Now the game is largely a television PR game, with the prohibitionists putting
forth distorted views that they know amount to self-serving lies upon lies,
and the reformers putting forth slightly less distorted views, when all the
while, a deadly house-of-mirrors battle and system of evil is going on
involving predatory prohibitionists and the profitable illegal markets that
they cooperate with — it’s very twisted, which you wouldn’t know from viewing
the reformers’ feeble ads that portray the prohibitionists as merely
misinformed fellas that really mean well.

The prohibitionists are the most evil, lying, self-serving criminals
imaginable — real monsters, yet the reformers pretend that they are just
mistaken. It’s hard to admit how evil this world is. If entheogens were
decriminalized, would the ego delusion collapse overnight? Prohibition serves
to protect the ego delusion.
Group: egodeath Message: 1494 From: panoptes69 Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Re: Demons’ animal aspect; goat-man; donkey & rider
You are a theorist, and NOT an initiate. I’ve read enough of your Christian
bull shit, and am fed up with it. If you knew anything about the goat man,
the formula of shin ayin peh, I O PAN ! , You would not have spouted such
ignorance as that in this post.

Panoptes


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 1495 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Re: Further Buddhist terms
In Mahayana the 3 turnings became known as the Three Time Periods
which according to various traditions, using literal thinking, were
the first 500 or 1000 years the second 500 or 1000 years and the
third 500 or 1000 years, interpreted as years after the death of the
Historical Buddha. Here is a complex passage written by Sun Lotus:

“Question: You have mentioned above that the teaching, practice and
proof are not all present in each of the three periods of the
Former, Middle and Latter Days of the Law. If so, how do you explain
the Great Teacher Miao-lo’s statement, “The beginning of the Latter
Day of the Law will not be without inconspicuous benefit, for it is
the time when the great teaching will be propagated”?

Answer: The essence of this passage is that those who obtained
benefit during the Former and Middle Days of the Law
received “conspicuous” benefit, because the relationship they formed
with the Lotus Sutra during the lifetime of the Buddha had finally
matured. On the other hand, those born today in the Latter Day of
the Law receive the seed of Buddhahood for the first time, and their
benefit is therefore inconspicuous. The teaching, practice and proof
of this age differ greatly from those of Hinayana, provisional
Mahayana, the pre-Lotus Sutra teachings or the theoretical teaching
of the Lotus Sutra. There is no one now who can gain benefits like
those of the Former and Middle Days of the Law. According to Miao-
lo’s interpretation, the benefits in the Latter Day are
inconspicuous, and people can therefore neither perceive nor
understand them.

Question: Is there any sutra passage which says that inconspicuous
benefits are limited to the Latter Day of the Law?

Answer: A passage from the Yakuo chapter in the seventh volume of
the Lotus Sutra reads: “This sutra is beneficial medicine for the
illnesses of all mankind. If one is ill and can hear of this sutra,
his illness will vanish immediately, and he will find perpetual
youth and eternal life.” The Great Teacher Miao-lo says: “To regard
the last five-hundred-year period after the Buddha’s passing as the
time when no one can attain benefit is a superficial viewpoint. The
beginning of the Latter Day of the Law will not be without
inconspicuous benefit, for it is the time when the great teaching
will be propagated. The last five-hundred-year period corresponds to
that time.”

Question: The passages you have quoted indicate that the propagation
of the Lotus Sutra is limited to the first five hundred years of the
Latter Day of the Law. Yet the provisional Mahayana sutras say that
their practices will still be appropriate throughout the ten
thousand years of the Latter Day of the Law. How do you reply to
this?

Answer: Miao-lo states in the above-mentioned commentary that such
an interpretation of the last five-hundred-year period
is “superficial.” From a more profound viewpoint, the Lotus Sutra
will spread throughout the ten thousand years of the Latter Day. The
Great Teacher T’ien-t’ai comments on the previously quoted passage
from the Yakuo chapter, stating: “It is not only the people who live
during the lifetime of the Buddha who obtain great benefits. In the
fifth five hundred years, the Mystic Way shall spread and benefit
mankind far into the future.” Does this annotation suggest anything
other than the ten thousand years of the Latter Day of the Law? The
Fumbetsu Kudoku chapter in the sixth volume of the Lotus Sutra
refers to “one who is able to uphold this sutra in the evil age of
the Latter Day of the Law.” Also the Anrakugyo chapter reads, “In
the Latter Day of the Law, one who desires to teach this sutra…”
These quotations refer to the ten thousand years of the Latter Day
of Law. All the Buddha’s teachings other than the Lotus Sutra are
covered by his declaration: “In these more than forty years, I have
not yet revealed the truth.” Moreover, there are some cases where
the sutras have been revised according to the understanding of those
who compiled them and therefore cannot be trusted.

The scholars of the various sects remain oblivious to the fact that
the Buddha sowed the seed of enlightenment when he expounded the
Lotus Sutra in the past. How foolish they are! Quite unaware of the
distant past of sanzen-jintengo and of gohyaku-jintengo, they
abandon the mystic teaching which is pure and perfect, and sink
again into the sea of the sufferings of birth and death. It is
pitiful beyond description that, though born in a land where the
people’s capacity to receive the perfect teaching is fully mature,
they vainly fall back into the great citadel of the hell of
incessant suffering. They are no different from a person who arrives
at the bejeweled K’un-lun Mountains only to return to his
impoverished country without a single gem, or one who enters a
forest of sandalwood trees, yet goes back to the barren rubble of
his own land without ever plucking the champaka’s blossom. The third
volume of the Lotus Sutra reads, “It is as if one came from a
famished land and suddenly encountered a great king’s feast.” And
the sixth volume reads, “This, my land, remains safe and
unharmed,… My pure land is indestructible.”

In your letter you mentioned a difficult question put to you, as to
the assertion that people are able to achieve enlightenment through
their practice of the pre-Lotus Sutra teachings. In reply, you
should quote the third volume of the Nirvana Sutra which reads, “Men
of devout faith! Study and practice [until you learn that the three
treasures are one and eternal].” Further, quote the third volume of
the Guketsu which comments on this passage where it states, “Only
those who have heard the Mahayana teachings in the remote past [are
able to attain enlightenment through the practice of the Hinayana
teachings],” and, “Those who achieved Buddhahood through the
practice of the pre-Lotus Sutra teachings were able to do so only
because of their initial practice in the remote past.” You should
make clear that the pre-Lotus Sutra teachings provide no benefit of
enlightenment whatsoever. Then explain that the same principle holds
true in the time of propagation following the Buddha’s death. All
who obtained the proof of enlightenment in the Former and Middle
Days of the Law were able to do so solely because of the
relationship they had formed with the Lotus Sutra during the
Buddha’s lifetime.

Should your opponents repeatedly insist that the pre-Lotus Sutra
teachings provide a path to enlightenment, cite to them the Buddha’s
own declaration in the Muryogi Sutra: “In these more than forty
years, I have not yet revealed the truth.” Common mortals like
ourselves at the initial stage of practice can expect to attain
Buddhahood by relying on the teachings of the Buddha. The words of
the various teachers are in themselves of no use at all. The Buddha
gave strict counsel against following them with his statement in the
Nirvana Sutra, “Rely on the Law and not upon persons.” Remind your
opponents of this and repeatedly cite the passage, “I have not yet
revealed the truth,” to refute their arguments. However, do not
carelessly cite such passages [of the Lotus Sutra] as “Honestly
discarding the provisional teachings, [I will expound only the
supreme Way]” or “The World-Honored One has long expounded his
doctrines [and now must reveal the truth].” Rather, keep these
teachings deep in your heart.”


Above the mention of two vast periods of time “Sanzen Jintengo” (the
amount of time passed if you turned to dust 3000 major world systems
each grain of dust represents a “Kalpa.” and Gohyaku Jintengo, is
much longer. They are both periods of time that transcend
historical time and I will go over these when I deal with Ichinen
Sanzen, as well as “time without beginning,” called Kuon Ganjo.
These three periods are referred to within the Saddharma Pundarika
Sutra. These times are far vaster then the age if the universe as
science knows it.

dc





I recall there are 3 turnings of the wheel of the law, like 3 ways of
conceiving merit, such as the egoic conception of merit and system
of merit,
the intermediate scheme of merit, and the transcendent conception of
merit.


>Other most important factors and terms of high Mahayana Buddhism,
>which is applicable to a entheogenic theory, for later explanation:
>
>1. Three Bodies of the Buddha
>2. Ichinen Sanzen
>3. General and Specific Transmission
>4. Three Great Secret Laws
>
>But this will have to wait for another day.
>
>dc
Group: egodeath Message: 1496 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Re: Mapping this theory to high-level Buddhism
>>>>>>>”In what sense does ego exist, and it what
sense does ego not exist? That is, what exactly is the nature of
ego?”<<<<<<<<<

Yes that is close to the meaning of neither-nor….But I think it is
important to understand that this also speciically refers to a
entheogenic state of the middle way.

dc
Group: egodeath Message: 1497 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Re: Defining “high-level” theory of myth, archetypes, astrotheology
>>>>>>No one who matters actually believes that entheogens are bad
and warrant
prohibition — instead, it’s all nothing but ploy and paycheck
strategy,
prohibition purely for profit on the part of the false saviors. The
flaw of
the reformers is playing the game straight, when it’s actually a
completely
fake game, total extreme propaganda, taxpayer-supported.

Now the game is largely a television PR game, with the
prohibitionists putting
forth distorted views that they know amount to self-serving lies
upon lies,
and the reformers putting forth slightly less distorted views, when
all the
while, a deadly house-of-mirrors battle and system of evil is going
on
involving predatory prohibitionists and the profitable illegal
markets that
they cooperate with — it’s very twisted, which you wouldn’t know
from viewing
the reformers’ feeble ads that portray the prohibitionists as merely
misinformed fellas that really mean well.

The prohibitionists are the most evil, lying, self-serving criminals
imaginable — real monsters, yet the reformers pretend that they are
just
mistaken. It’s hard to admit how evil this world is. If entheogens
were
decriminalized, would the ego delusion collapse overnight?
Prohibition serves
to protect the ego delusion.>>>>>>>

Of course I agree that what you say is true, I also believe that in
this primitive world, the very nature of the constitution of the
United States—(although not yet living up to itself yet) provides
a way to make all of this legal and just as other issues in this
society have challenged the status quo on consitutional grounds, on
made headway. Although the history of the drug wars go back to the
beginning of history, this does not mean it is always doomed to
repeat itself.

No the errors in the mind would not collapse over night, but legal
religious use and scientific study, would certainly be a major steop
in the right direction…

One thing about the ideal of the law, is that it can mutate, if a
good enough proof is presented, then the law, which by its own
nature, is supposed to be objective and beyond preconceived bias.

dc
Group: egodeath Message: 1498 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Re: Demons’ animal aspect; goat-man; donkey & rider
>>>>>>You are a theorist, and NOT an initiate. I’ve read enough of
your Christian bull shit, and am fed up with it. If you knew
anything about the goat man, the formula of shin ayin peh, I O
PAN ! , You would not have spouted such
ignorance as that in this post.

Panoptes>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

It is interesting the choice of words here. “Bullshit,” and “fed up
with it.” Refers to the Horney Goatman who will eat anything until
he is full. His mad passion to rape the nymph lead to his blowing
his pipes when she turned into a group of reeds.

And of course learning ones Ayins, Pehs, and Shins, is helpful.

Actually the vedic, egyptian, greek and roman stories of the gods
became hopelessly mixed up and deranged by Crowley and the origins
of these myths as celestial objects inthe sky and how they were
imprinted as myths in the non-conscious became lost.

The Constellation of Makara the Goat-headed-dragon is ridden by
Vishnu and of course this really refers to the movements of Venus or
Kama Deva, the god of love, in the constellation of Capricorn and
then the appearance of Pluto as the Shapeshifting Kama meeting the
Sea nymph or….Typhon the reptilian monster, causing Pan to turn
into a goat.

This is the muddy thinking of ancient stargazers, getting really
wasted and being severely repulsed and attracted in the extremes of
of god-devil intercourse.

dc




























— In egodeath@yahoogroups.com, panoptes69@a… wrote:
> You are a theorist, and NOT an initiate. I’ve read enough of your
Christian
> bull shit, and am fed up with it. If you knew anything about the
goat man,
> the formula of shin ayin peh, I O PAN ! , You would not have
spouted such
> ignorance as that in this post.
>
> Panoptes
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath Message: 1499 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Re: Acid Rock lyrics: remote cueing across verses
>>>>>>>Album-oriented rock started as trip soundtrack rock. Single-
oriented acid rock was impractical, because LSD lasts 12 hours,
while a pop-sike single lasts only 3-1/2 minutes.>>>>>>>>>>>

Ever listen to “Le Voyage,” by Pierre Henry? Or Mayazumi’s “Nirvana
Symphony.” Never have I heard better ego loss soundtracks then
these.

If you are unfamiliar with these, I recommend them highly. In Le
Voyage , (1962-Musique Concrete) there is a distinct moment when the
ego is destroyed, but listening to it in normal consciousness it
sounds like at that moment, a bowling ball being flushed down a
toilet, into a really deep sewer. Nirvana Symphony has to be the
most transcendent piece ever written is takes one through the
scariest trials of DNA cybernetics and then brings one into a state
of oceanic consciousness.

Both of these are on LP and CD and are hard to find…unless one
knows someone who has them, or one is really determined to find them
on ebay.

it is interesting how lyrics and pure sound/music, serve a related
but different function during the entheogenic experience.

dc














— In egodeath@yahoogroups.com, “Michael Hoffman” <mhoffman@e…>
wrote:
> Early in this discussion group I posted an analysis of Bohemian
Rhapsody —
> very heavy ego-death/acid mysticism allusions. I consider Queen
one of the
> groups that has a full grasp of the entheogen rock religion, but
prefers to
> write isolated songs focusing on that subject.
>
> Rush, as a philosophy group ought, chooses to allude to the
subject more
> consistently or relentlessly throughout their albums, particularly
their
> classic-era albums Caress of Steel through Grace Under Pressure
(mid-1970s to
> mid-1980s).
>
> Black Sabbath treated LSD religion as a substantial but not
emphasized portion
> of their drug-alluding Heavy Rock scope — Ozzy’s first two solo
albums,
> however, emphasized LSD, according to my interpretation. I have
heard that
> LSD was used routinely by many bands as part of lyric writing; I
suspect that
> was a trick of the trade, used for albums such as one by the Cars.
>
> There is a distribution of acid-mysticism allusions at the level
of a band, an
> album, a song, or a verse — at any level there may be a high
density of
> allusions. One technique is to insert a verse dense with
allusions into a
> song that otherwise is innocent of such allusions. Metallica’s
For Whom the
> Bell Tolls, Cheap Trick’s Way of the World. This verse is a key
suggesting
> reading the remaining lyrics in their mystical sense, though the
other lyrics
> are not themselves filled with dense allusions.
>
> That is like a mundane-state, ordinary song about flying in
airplanes, with
> the middle verse switching to overtly double-coded meaning such
as “a trip so
> high, visions before my eye”, which would then switch the meaning
of the other
> lyrics too. This is the theory or principle of remote cueing.
Suppose only
> half of the verses in Caress of Steel are, considered in
isolation, clearly
> entheogenic, and the other verses are no more entheogenic than any
straight
> lyrics would randomly happen to be.
>
> Yet considered as a whole, the entire album and all its lyrics
would demand to
> be interpreted entheogenically, even the average verses, due to
the presence
> in the package of the strongly entheogenic verses. This formula
makes great
> sense, more so than proposing, say, an entire album with just one
verse meant
> to be heard in its entheogenic sense, because if the listener is
in a 12-hour
> altered-state session, the mind will be in the encoding/decoding
state for all
> of the verses, not just for one song.
>
> Album-oriented rock started as trip soundtrack rock. Single-
oriented acid
> rock was impractical, because LSD lasts 12 hours, while a pop-sike
single
> lasts only 3-1/2 minutes.
Group: egodeath Message: 1500 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Re: Nirvana, metaphor, kingdom of heaven
>>>>> I completely reject the notion that expedient means is an
option that works
better than explicit explanation of the principles of enlightenment.
The most
expedient means are entheogens, combined with teaching rational
explicit
systematic principles, combined with teaching how
mystic/mythic/religious
metaphor works as a poetic encoding/decoding system.>>>>>

The Saddharma Pundarika is very explicit that the use of expedients
is used when peop;e lose their seeking mind. recptivity is
important. If a person isn;t receptive, then they need a severe
disruptive force, befoe they become receptive, otherwise an
expedient is used to inspire or motivate them. Without receptivity
no one will listen, no matter how great the discourse. At the same
time, the Sutra also refutes the use of expedient means at a time
when the times are such that it is too late to use an expedient…at
that time the teaching is taught directly.

If being direct doesn;t work, then the person is still subject to
Nature’s expedient—-DEATH itself. The Expedient of Death (Upaya
Nirvana) (Jap. Himyo Hobemn gen Nehan) occurs anturally. At the
moments approaching death, of in the case of a entheogenic
experience, suddenly a person aspires “to see the Buddha.” There
formerly unreceptive mind sufdenly becomes receptive. At that time,
when they are told the law directly, they at first, may hate it and
slander it—yet that same hate and slander forms the connection to
it. (called the Poison Drum effect)….this was told in analogy in
a story that a person kicked the Buddha and the person fell
into “hell,” except for the foot.

An excellent passage by Sun Lotus about refuting the expedient
means, which will really help you understand the high Mahayana
meaning:


“However, the Buddha’s teachings are various, perhaps because
people’s minds also differ greatly. In any event, Shakyamuni taught
for no more than fifty years. Among the teachings he expounded
during the first forty years and more, we find the Kegon Sutra,
which says, “The mind, the Buddha and all living beings – these
three things are without distinction”; the Agon sutras, which set
forth the principles of suffering, emptiness, impermanence and
egolessness; the Daijuku Sutra, which asserts the interpenetration
of the defiled aspect and the pure aspect; the Daibon Hannya Sutra,
which teaches mutual identification and non-duality; and the
Muryoju, Kammuryoju and Amida sutras, which emphasize rebirth in the
Land of Perfect Bliss. All these teachings were doubtless expounded
in order to save all living beings in the Former, Middle and Latter
Days of the Law.

Nevertheless, for some reason of his own, the Buddha declared in the
Muryogi Sutra, “[Expounding the Law in various ways,] I made use of
the power of expedient means. But in these more than forty years, I
have not yet revealed the truth.” Like a parent who has second
thoughts about the transfer deed he has written out earlier, he
looked back with regret upon all the sutras he had expounded during
the past forty years and more, including those which taught rebirth
in the Land of Perfect Bliss, and declared [that no matter how
earnestly one may practice them,] “…in the end one will never
attain supreme enlightenment, even after the lapse of countless,
limitless, inconceivable asogi kalpas.” He reiterated this in the
Hoben chapter of the Lotus Sutra, saying, “Honestly discarding the
provisional teachings, I will expound only the supreme Way.”
By “discarding the provisional teachings,” he meant that one should
discard the Nembutsu and other teachings preached during the period
of those forty-some years.”

Cool?

dc












— In egodeath@yahoogroups.com, “Michael Hoffman” <mhoffman@e…>
wrote:
> >Nirvana=This has a number of meanings, depending on how it is
meant
> >in either low or high Buddhism. The literal term, actually
> >means “death,” or “extinction,” and referred to a goal of early
> >buddhism, to free oneself from the cycle of birth and death, which
> >was already the goal of the hindus……but in high mahayana
> >(Saddharma Pundarika) it was revealed that the teaching
> >of “Nirvana,” was actually a “Secret and Skillful Means of the
> >Buddha.” I already quoted the applicable passages in previous
posts
> >and I told the story of the “Transient Castle,” where the analogy
of
> >a leader of travelers conjures up a Castle to inspire the
travelers
> >to keep going to the goal and later it is discovered that the
Castle
> >was an illusion and then the real goal is revealed. This is a
> >fundamental principle of high Mahayana. Another Buddhist term
> >is “The Expedient means of Nirvana” means the “Expedient means of
> >Death,” wherein not only are expedients used by wise buddhas to
> >teach the law, but even nature itself, provides an “secret”
> >expedient means.
>
>
> This reminds me of an animated ad showing a man floating back and
forth in
> sitting meditation 9 inches above the ground. It that how I
picture
> enlightenment? Not at all, but perhaps it is comparable to how I
felt when I
> made sense of the construct of “kingdom of God” in terms of no-
free-will, Nov.
> 14, 2001, enabling me to finally form a systematic interpretation
of
> Christianity that fit with my since-1988 core model of block-
universe
> determinism.
>
> I had episodically experienced the return of the messiah and
entering the
> kingdom of God before, even connecting it with the no-free-will
concept (this
> was part of the “grand forking path” insight), but didn’t yet
secure a
> complete, systematic interpretation.
>
> Upon finally attaining a complete, systematic interpretation, for
a few days I
> was in heaven, in nirvana, not in the sense of being in a mystic
altered state
> while comprehending the metaphors, but rather, just being in the
normal state
> of consciousness but having a scientific/theoretic breakthrough
experience by
> reflecting on the experiences and insights of the mystic altered
state and
> reflecting upon how mystic-state metaphor works as a clever
systematic
> meaning-puzzle.
>
> In this sense, my full ascension into heaven didn’t occur in the
mystic
> altered state, but was heavily informed by the insights of the
mystic altered
> state, including insights about networks of word-meanings.
>
> The promise of entering a castle-like heaven, as in the book of
Revelation,
> can be an expedient means. Attaining a transformed, higher-
coherence
> worldmodel is like attaining a castle, entering a kind of blissful
nirvana,
> ascending to heaven in the company of the saints. The castle
could be
> considered real, as a certain kind of castle.
>
> Alan Watts is too much of a poet without explaining himself
explicitly: in the
> book The Way of Zen, he likes saying enlightenment is nothing to
be gained,
> but while true in a certain sense, I maintain that enlightenment
is something
> to be gained by the mind: a higher, more coherent worldmodel in
addition to
> the mind’s previous worldmodel.
>
> I completely reject the notion that expedient means is an option
that works
> better than explicit explanation of the principles of
enlightenment. The most
> expedient means are entheogens, combined with teaching rational
explicit
> systematic principles, combined with teaching how
mystic/mythic/religious
> metaphor works as a poetic encoding/decoding system.
>
> — Michael Hoffman
> Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 1501 From: spastic_prune Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Re: Acid Rock lyrics: remote cueing across verses
Since I’m mainly interested in the musical side of things, I’ve done
quite a bit of listening into the psychedelic genre. Personally, I
really like Tangerine Dream’s “Phaedra” and other albums by them.
The later stuff is less engaging and easily forgettable (such as the
soundtracks like “Oasis”), but earlier Tangerine Dream stuff (the 3
keyboard assault w/o percussion) is the most aural and psychedelic of
their eras.

-greg

— In egodeath@yahoogroups.com, “rialcnis2000” <rialcnis2000@y…>
wrote:
> >>>>>>>Album-oriented rock started as trip soundtrack rock. Single-
> oriented acid rock was impractical, because LSD lasts 12 hours,
> while a pop-sike single lasts only 3-1/2 minutes.>>>>>>>>>>>
>
> Ever listen to “Le Voyage,” by Pierre Henry? Or Mayazumi’s “Nirvana
> Symphony.” Never have I heard better ego loss soundtracks then
> these.
>
> If you are unfamiliar with these, I recommend them highly. In Le
> Voyage , (1962-Musique Concrete) there is a distinct moment when
the
> ego is destroyed, but listening to it in normal consciousness it
> sounds like at that moment, a bowling ball being flushed down a
> toilet, into a really deep sewer. Nirvana Symphony has to be the
> most transcendent piece ever written is takes one through the
> scariest trials of DNA cybernetics and then brings one into a state
> of oceanic consciousness.
>
> Both of these are on LP and CD and are hard to find…unless one
> knows someone who has them, or one is really determined to find
them
> on ebay.
>
> it is interesting how lyrics and pure sound/music, serve a related
> but different function during the entheogenic experience.
>
> dc
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> — In egodeath@yahoogroups.com, “Michael Hoffman” <mhoffman@e…>
> wrote:
> > Early in this discussion group I posted an analysis of Bohemian
> Rhapsody —
> > very heavy ego-death/acid mysticism allusions. I consider Queen
> one of the
> > groups that has a full grasp of the entheogen rock religion, but
> prefers to
> > write isolated songs focusing on that subject.
> >
> > Rush, as a philosophy group ought, chooses to allude to the
> subject more
> > consistently or relentlessly throughout their albums,
particularly
> their
> > classic-era albums Caress of Steel through Grace Under Pressure
> (mid-1970s to
> > mid-1980s).
> >
> > Black Sabbath treated LSD religion as a substantial but not
> emphasized portion
> > of their drug-alluding Heavy Rock scope — Ozzy’s first two solo
> albums,
> > however, emphasized LSD, according to my interpretation. I have
> heard that
> > LSD was used routinely by many bands as part of lyric writing; I
> suspect that
> > was a trick of the trade, used for albums such as one by the Cars.
> >
> > There is a distribution of acid-mysticism allusions at the level
> of a band, an
> > album, a song, or a verse — at any level there may be a high
> density of
> > allusions. One technique is to insert a verse dense with
> allusions into a
> > song that otherwise is innocent of such allusions. Metallica’s
> For Whom the
> > Bell Tolls, Cheap Trick’s Way of the World. This verse is a key
> suggesting
> > reading the remaining lyrics in their mystical sense, though the
> other lyrics
> > are not themselves filled with dense allusions.
> >
> > That is like a mundane-state, ordinary song about flying in
> airplanes, with
> > the middle verse switching to overtly double-coded meaning such
> as “a trip so
> > high, visions before my eye”, which would then switch the meaning
> of the other
> > lyrics too. This is the theory or principle of remote cueing.
> Suppose only
> > half of the verses in Caress of Steel are, considered in
> isolation, clearly
> > entheogenic, and the other verses are no more entheogenic than
any
> straight
> > lyrics would randomly happen to be.
> >
> > Yet considered as a whole, the entire album and all its lyrics
> would demand to
> > be interpreted entheogenically, even the average verses, due to
> the presence
> > in the package of the strongly entheogenic verses. This formula
> makes great
> > sense, more so than proposing, say, an entire album with just one
> verse meant
> > to be heard in its entheogenic sense, because if the listener is
> in a 12-hour
> > altered-state session, the mind will be in the encoding/decoding
> state for all
> > of the verses, not just for one song.
> >
> > Album-oriented rock started as trip soundtrack rock. Single-
> oriented acid
> > rock was impractical, because LSD lasts 12 hours, while a pop-
sike
> single
> > lasts only 3-1/2 minutes.
Group: egodeath Message: 1502 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Re: Acid Rock lyrics: remote cueing across verses
Since I’m mainly interested in the musical side of things, I’ve done
quite a bit of listening into the psychedelic genre. Personally, I
really like Tangerine Dream’s “Phaedra” and other albums by them.
The later stuff is less engaging and easily forgettable (such as the
soundtracks like “Oasis”), but earlier Tangerine Dream stuff (the 3
keyboard assault w/o percussion) is the most aural and psychedelic
of
their eras.

-greg<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<


The beginnings of modern “Space music,” and it’s roots in older
music is a pretty obscure and interesting. Tangarine dream was one
of the first to be doing this consistently in the pop genre.
Michael Stearns first album, “Ancient Leaves” was a breakthrough
album, a favorite of mine.

In 1969 after the Yardbirds broke up in 1968, Keith Relf and Jim
McCarty founded the “classical-rock” “Renaissance,” and only did 2
albums before they allowed others to take over for them. At the end
of the firast album is a short segment of organic, ethereal sounds
that was a true Breakthrough, harkening back to the ancient sounds
of bells and Shakuhachi, like wind blowing through a hollowed tree
stump, a ghostly effect that conjured up the feeling of death (death
of ego). Later Electronic space music tended to lack the organic
sounds. The gutiar bowing done by Jimmy Page with the Yardbird’s
original “Dazed and Confused” and then Led Zeppelin’s version, also
had that organic, analog sound, “Ancient Leaves,” also, although
electronic, also had an organic sound. The organic quality seems to
triggers certain feelings of unconscious natural processes, that tap
into primordial events. Tangerine dream, in the early albums also
tapped into this at times.

The Musique Concrete of Pierre Henry, especially Le Voyage, using
only analog sounds seems to be the sound of sentient and insentient
processes, gasping for the last breath, until everything is
dissolved in the void. Much of this work was done using balloons
being deflated like shreiking whoopie cushions, in mutiple tracks.
Producing the effect of irrevocable dissolution of body and
consciousness, giving way to electronic, but still organic sounds,
with a random quality of the touchdown into the state of limbo and
then into a rebirth into a womb. Le Voyage, was intended as a aural
version of the Tibetan book of the Dead. Other works work by Henry
was Le Livre des Morts Egyptien, based on the Egyptian Book of the
Dead, and L’Apocalypse de Jean are among my favorites. His work is
very different from that of Stockhausen and Cage, which seems to
come from an entirely different place steering away from the organic
quality, into a more normal consciousness mode of thought.

Wendy Carlos in 1972, did a very organic piece called “Sonic
Seasonings,” and also has done a number of other things with a very
organic sound.

In the entheogenic experience the sound of death and the sound of
angelic choirs, have a distinct effect on the listener. The former
is of ego death the latter a rebirth.

Lyrics in psychedelic rock seem to key into the hypersuggestible
state and the meaning of the words tends to work by association and
in that state, where words have power to open various doors.

Latter “avante garde” music, Tangerine dream, Jean Michel-Jarre,
Vangelis, Mike Oldfield, Philip Glass and others in latter works
seemed to focus on movie soundtracks, melodies and more commercial
uses of electronic music. Heavy Metal descended from the austere
Yardbirds, who built their true reputation, not around their few
albums, but around their profound, very organic, live performances,
based in what Jeff Beck had called “perversions of sound.” Heavy
Metal/Psychedelic rock then went into many directions, some
commercial and some not, but with encoded psychedelic lyrics,
written on LSD. What I saw was that people tended to imprint the
music they heard in their first experiences with entheogens and
often they were unable to see the sequences of musical history in
the psychedelic genre.

Every so often I delve into the biographies of Stravinski, convinced
he must have expanded his consciousness….I have always wondered
how Stravinsky, composed the Rite of Spring in 1913…….it changed
everything in music. Later he became friends with Aldous Huxley,
but I have not found any connection to entheogenic use in
Stravinsky’s life in that early period, alhtough I find it hard to
believe he was naturally that brilliant.

dc

*******
Here is a good little essay from the web on Musique concrete and
Pierre Henry:


Pierre Henry: Beyond Schaeffer
John Donohue SP ’99

When musique concrete is mentioned the first name that comes to mind
is Pierre Schaeffer. He coined this term to describe a new form of
music which he developed that was based on the acoustical
manipulation of recorded sounds. Schaeffer was not a musician,
though, he was a telecommunications engineer1 who lived through Nazi
occupation of France. His revolt from the German atonal contemporary
music led him to this new territory. Unfortunately, most of his
music was not of a caliber to convince classical snobs of the
validity of using found sounds instead of instruments.

Much of Schaeffer’s successful work was in collaboration with
another French composer, who unlike Schaeffer was a classically
trained musician. This artist was Pierre Henry. The two worked
together on one of Schaeffer’s most successful works Symphonie pour
un Homme Seul. Pierre Henry became one of the leading figures in
music concrete after this and soon surpassed Schaeffer. Instead of
confining himself to a narrow field of development and
experimentation Henry expanded his musical endeavors in many
directions.

Pierre Henry was born in 1927 in Paris. He was unhealthy as a child
and did not attend school but instead had private tutors. Of his
musical beginning Henry says, “I had started my career as a
percussionist quite early, beating on anything around me; furniture,
the tables, the drums. I arrived at the moment of creating a noise,
and went on to create something entirely new.2″ By 1944 he was
studying at the Paris Conservatory and taking lessons from very
important musical figures in the twentieth century. His piano and
percussion teacher was Passeronne, and his theory and composition
lessons were with Olivier Messiaen and Nadia Boulanger.

In 1949 Pierre Henry won a commission to compose the music for a
television documentary “Seeing the Invisible.”His earlier work had
been traditional instrumental music. Later that year he began work
with Schaeffer on the Symphonie pour un Homme Seul. This consists of
ten movements which are meant to invoke the sounds a man hears
walking alone at night.3 All of the sounds are created by the human
body. Most or all of Henry’s music is programmatic and his titles
are the key to understanding the theme of each piece. In 1951 he
joined the Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concrete which was based
in Schaeffer’s state funded studio Radiodiffusion Francaise. This
year Henry and Schaeffer collaborated on another major piece,
Orpheus. This was an opera for voices and musique concrete. This
piece wasn’t performed in its entirety until 1953 in the
Donaueschingen Festival in Germany.4 In good tradition this debut
was met with public outrage.

By 1952 Henry was the director of the Groupe de Recherche de Musique
Concrete and he remained in that position until 1958. Pierre Henry
was also a film afficionado and in 1952 he wrote the score to
Astrologie which was the first commercial film in France to have an
electro- acoustic score. This was a first move towards later
audio/visual compositions that Henry wrote. In 1952 he also wrote
Antiphonie which was a contrast between two sound groups.

Pierre Henry became more interested in techniques outside of the
strict musique concrete that Schaeffer theorized, and in 1958 he
broke away from the Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concrete and
established his own studio, the Studio Apsome. This was the first
private electronic music studio in France.5 He wanted to incorporate
synthesized sounds with other musical techniques that had been
developed. One key aspect of the career of Pierre Henry is
hybridization of ideas and technology. His compositions of 1959,
Entity, Coexistence, and Investigations used elements of synthesized
sounds along with the found sounds of musique concrete.6

The early 1960’s were an interesting time in Henry’s career. He did
a project with a rock group, Spooky Tooth, although he didn’t like
the heavy bass and reverb laden vocals.7 In 1962 he wrote a major
piece, Le Voyage, which was entirely synthesized. In 1963 Variations
for a Door and a Sigh were composed using found sounds in variation
to create a seventeenth century French suite. The next year Henry
made some popular success with his recording Jerks Electronique
which sold over 150,000 copies.8

In the later sixties Henry wrote some religious works including the
Messe de Liverpool in 1967-68. He also composed a piece based on the
book of revelations L’Apocalypse de Jean. Both of these recordings
have narration which remains intelligible over the intricacies of
his electroacoustic composition. In 1971 he wrote a large scale
audio/visual work which depicted brain waves as electronic sounds
and images. This was Mise en Musiaue du Corticolart. He has also
written other audio/visual works like L’Homme a la Camera which is
based on a film of the same name. In 1973 Henry wrote La Dixome (the
tenth) which is based on excerpts from Beethoven’s nine symphonies
which are manipulated into a tenth.

Many of Pierre Henry’s compositions have been choreographed for
ballet by Maurice Bejart. These include Astrologie, Variations for a
Door and a Sigh, Le Voyage, Mass for Today, and Symphonie pour un
Homme Seul. Henry actually toured globally with Bejart’s dancers as
their sound technician.9

One common theme of Henry’s work is death in a literary sense. Le
Voyage is based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, while Le Livre des
Morts Egyptien is based on the Egyptian book of the dead. He also
wrote L’Apocalypse de Jean which describes the apocalypse. Formally
his pieces are not anarchistic although their electronic nature may
make it seem that way. Several pieces are based on classical forms
like Symphonie pour un Homme Seul and Variations for a Door and a
Sigh. Henry says, “one of course has to compose with a direction, a
lucid idea. One has to have in mind a certain construction, a
form.10″ Since traditional devices like harmony and melody are
obscured one thing that is left is rhythm. “There is always a beat
in my music. The beat is what I find more interesting than something
asymmetrical. Everything has to be natural for me.11″

Henry has very distinct views on technology. When he began work on
electronic music the only medium was disque souple, or soft disk.
This was very difficult to work with and precarious because it was
easily damaged and couldn’t overcome generational loss. Next came
magnetic tape which was the most important medium for musique
concrete. Now with the widespread use of digital technology things
have changed again. Of digital Henry says:

“There are many things we can do with digital sound such as
uncovering the original sound. All sounds become original sounds,
the sound of the beginning. That’s interesting but there is a
betrayal in the sense that digital sound is not as good as
analogical sound. It has less strength, less impact, less presence.
Therefore it’s necessary to mix analog, that is, old equipment with
new equipment. We can’t get rid of old equipment. We still need to
have the future connected to the past.12″

Again Henry is talking of the need for a hybrid between two schools
of thought. Henry adds,

“I have always struggled to have the sounds retain their
transparency. Now I have conquered these problems, thanks to digital
techniques. It is possible to make a perfect copy, but I am worried
about the machines doing the work that I should be doing. . . The
computer works instead of you . . . I think that we now live in a
dangerous age because the composer should certainly not work with a
tap, that he can open or close.13″

The dedicated work of electronic music composers has led to more
widespread use of electronic techniques in everyday life. However
this mass commercialization has done nothing to elevate the art form
or endeavors of its predecessors. Henry sees this music
as, “absolutely disgraceful on the radio, at the cinema, in adverts.
And I see that at the moment there is one sound. Not sounds. One
single sound, everywhere, It’s a sound that has been
standardized.14″

The career of Pierre Henry has gone from humourous pieces to
contemplative works on ponderous subjects. He went from being a
frail child to an avant garde composer to a rock star and back
again. It was his musical sensibility, intricacy, and openness to
new techniques that made him a much greater composer than his
predecessor Schaeffer. And it was his ability to write for film, or
recording, or live performance, or opera, or ballet which truly set
him apart from other composers for electroacoustic music.



———————————————————————
———–


Bibliography:


Ernst, David. Musique Concrete. Boston, Massachusetts, Crescendo
Publishing Company, 1972.

Kostka, Stefan. Twentieth-Century Music, 2nd ed. Upper Saddle
Tiver,
New Jersey, Prentice Hall, 1999.

Russcol, Herbert. The Liberation of Sound: An Introduction to
Electronic Music. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Prentice-Hall,
1972.

Smolders, Ios. “Interview with Pierre Henry.” Vital. 1995.
Online. htt

p://www.hyperreal.org/intersection/zines/intervs.henry.html
(4/19/99).

Stolba, Marie. The Development of Western Music: A History.
Boston,
Massachusetts, McGraw-Hill, 1998.

Online. http://www.furious

.com/perfect/pierrehenry.html (4/19/99)

Online. http//ar

ts.ucsc.edu/EMS/music/music/landmarks/henry.html (4/19/99)







— In egodeath@yahoogroups.com, “rialcnis2000” <rialcnis2000@y…>
wrote:
> >>>>>>>Album-oriented rock started as trip soundtrack rock. Single-
> oriented acid rock was impractical, because LSD lasts 12 hours,
> while a pop-sike single lasts only 3-1/2 minutes.>>>>>>>>>>>
>
> Ever listen to “Le Voyage,” by Pierre Henry? Or
Mayazumi’s “Nirvana
> Symphony.” Never have I heard better ego loss soundtracks then
> these.
>
> If you are unfamiliar with these, I recommend them highly. In Le
> Voyage , (1962-Musique Concrete) there is a distinct moment when
the
> ego is destroyed, but listening to it in normal consciousness it
> sounds like at that moment, a bowling ball being flushed down a
> toilet, into a really deep sewer. Nirvana Symphony has to be the
> most transcendent piece ever written is takes one through the
> scariest trials of DNA cybernetics and then brings one into a
state
> of oceanic consciousness.
>
> Both of these are on LP and CD and are hard to find…unless one
> knows someone who has them, or one is really determined to find
them
> on ebay.
>
> it is interesting how lyrics and pure sound/music, serve a related
> but different function during the entheogenic experience.
>
> dc
>
>
Group: egodeath Message: 1503 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 25/03/2003
Subject: Re: Nirvana, metaphor, kingdom of heaven
>Nevertheless, for some reason of his own, the Buddha declared in the
>Muryogi Sutra, “[Expounding the Law in various ways,] I made use of
>the power of expedient means. But in these more than forty years, I
>have not yet revealed the truth.” Like a parent who has second
>thoughts about the transfer deed he has written out earlier, he
>looked back with regret upon all the sutras he had expounded during
>the past forty years and more, including those which taught rebirth
>in the Land of Perfect Bliss, and declared [that no matter how
>earnestly one may practice them,] “…in the end one will never
>attain supreme enlightenment, even after the lapse of countless,
>limitless, inconceivable asogi kalpas.” He reiterated this in the
>Hoben chapter of the Lotus Sutra, saying, “Honestly discarding the
>provisional teachings, I will expound only the supreme Way.”
>By “discarding the provisional teachings,” he meant that one should
>discard the Nembutsu and other teachings preached during the period
>of those forty-some years.”


Honestly discarding the provisional teachings, I expound only the supreme Way,
which includes teaching the ultimate meaning of the provisional teachings.
Group: egodeath Message: 1504 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 25/03/2003
Subject: Re: Demons’ animal aspect; goat-man; donkey & rider
>The goat also figures in the formula of shin ayin peh, I O PAN, somewhat
differently from the way the goat-man is used as an anthropomorphization of
the freewill assumption in Christian metaphor.


One should be cautious about too literally carrying over metaphor-matrixes
from one metaphor-system to another. It violates the rules of play in
mythic-mystic-metaphor. Each system of metaphor needs to be considered on its
own terms. All high myth is ultimately equivalent, but any one symbol, such
as the goat, is joined to other symbols in a unique matrix of connections
within each system.

In official Christian myth-religion, there is one God, who transcends the
cosmos and created the cosmos. In Gnostic religion, there are two gods — the
perfectly good god, who transcends the cosmos, and the evil or deluded god,
creator of the cosmos. So, is the “God” mytheme positive or negative? It
depends on the context, on which system of metaphor.

We can say “in mythic mystic-state metaphor, the goat symbol represents
individual will”, but that’s just a fair first-order assessment. When
considering the goat in different religions, the statement must be qualified
and there can be exceptions.

Sometimes functionally equivalent mythemes in two different systems are
essentially the same, but look, at first glance, quite different: for example,
Catholic “purgatory” is functionally equivalent to Buddhist “rebirth”: both of
these symbols represent the gradual nature of the transformation from the
egoic mental worldmodel to the transcendent worldmodel during a series of
intense mystic altered-state sessions.

It’s natural to contrast and compare goats and sheep — they are very similar
as domesticated livestock. There is a certain equivalence in sacrificing a
sheep or goat; they both represent “something about the nature of the human
‘organ’ of will”. In Satanism, the goat-oriented pentagram is an affirmation
of free will or the potency of will.

Goats love mushrooms and will fight for them — see the recent book:

Animals and Psychedelics: The Natural World and the Instinct to Alter
Consciousness
Giorgio Samorini
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0892819863


Greek Tragedy is “goat-song”. Tragedy and comedy were combined, altogether
commenting on the pathos of the freewill delusion. Tragedy lamented the
non-sovereignty of the ego; comedy mocked and laughed at it. Part of the
festivities was to try to balance on a goatskin filled with wine (possibly
mixed wine, that is, psychoactive wine).

Studying what the goat meant to the ancient Greeks would surely reveal a great
deal about Hellenistic myth-religion. Dionysus and goats are found each
other. I posted before my reading of the series of mythic initiation frescoes
in an Italian villa. Pan, panic, and ego-death are closely related.

Mythic elements always are variable, because mythic-mode cognition
transcendently operates on mythic-mystic symbols. However, the mode or
ultimately implied framework; the logical mechanics, remain the same.

There is no direct correlation of all aspects of the Pan and Devil figures,
but both figures, in their respective mythic systems, are closely keyed into
transcendent insight into the illusory and conventional nature of the
freewill/separate-self delusion — keyed in, one way or another, just as the
serpent is an extremely variable figure, highly liable to invert. The most
highly charged symbols are the most liable to invert from representing truth
and error.

The serpent is a highly flexible figure because it can be low — underground,
as a cthonic, netherword symbol standing for death and ego-death, and can also
be high, like the serpent raised up.

Poison and healing medicine, associated with venom, were held to be related.
The term “potion” and the mytheme of “poisoned mixed wine” follow this logic,
as do the dangerous scopalimine entheogens or deliriants, which are almost as
likely to cause bodily death as mystic death and rebirth — it can make you
“youthful again” (reborn after mystic death”, or can kill you (see the Greek
myth of Hekate tricking the king’s daughter into boiling to death instead of
rejuvenating the king).

— Michael Hoffman
Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 1505 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 25/03/2003
Subject: Re: Acid Rock lyrics: remote cueing across verses
In addition to double-entendres in lyrical words, and altered-state musical
sounds, there are hybrids, such as double-speak mumbling or double-tracked
vocals singing two different but similar sounding words together.

One of the most inventive and brilliant sonic allusions to LSD ever is the
uneven heartbeat (heart palpitations) at the end of the space-trip song Cygnus
X-1. This sound is a total givaway communicating the presence of LSD, but
only to those who are real veterans who have made a serious and sustained
study of the subject.

What about this — would you call it lyric, or music? In the song “Flying
High Again”, Ozzy sings “Never heard a thing I said”, then ping-ponged is the
pseudo-delayed “said” echoed twice, but it’s actually the word “dead”: “Never
heard a thing I said (dead, dead).” The song “Chemistry” by Rush uses
strategic mumbled words often.

Probably the deservedly most famous sonic allusion to LSD-triggered ego death
is the orchestral build-up, twice, at the end of the Beatles’ album Sgt.
Pepper, in the song A Day in the Life, which perfectly captures the
orgasm-like timing of the ego-death realization buildup.

The end of Cygnus X-1 is Rush’s exact equivalent to the build-up in Day in the
Life, so that we could say Cygnus X-1 is Rush’s “A Day in the Life”.


— Michael Hoffman
Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 1506 From: spastic_prune Date: 25/03/2003
Subject: Re: Acid Rock lyrics: remote cueing across verses
I think this is the first time I’ve ever heard “Cygnus X-1” compared
to “A Day In the Life”. Fabulous. Much thanks.

-greg

— In egodeath@yahoogroups.com, “Michael Hoffman” <mhoffman@e…>
wrote:
> In addition to double-entendres in lyrical words, and altered-
state musical
> sounds, there are hybrids, such as double-speak mumbling or double-
tracked
> vocals singing two different but similar sounding words together.
>
> One of the most inventive and brilliant sonic allusions to LSD
ever is the
> uneven heartbeat (heart palpitations) at the end of the space-trip
song Cygnus
> X-1. This sound is a total givaway communicating the presence of
LSD, but
> only to those who are real veterans who have made a serious and
sustained
> study of the subject.
>
> What about this — would you call it lyric, or music? In the
song “Flying
> High Again”, Ozzy sings “Never heard a thing I said”, then ping-
ponged is the
> pseudo-delayed “said” echoed twice, but it’s actually the
word “dead”: “Never
> heard a thing I said (dead, dead).” The song “Chemistry” by Rush
uses
> strategic mumbled words often.
>
> Probably the deservedly most famous sonic allusion to LSD-
triggered ego death
> is the orchestral build-up, twice, at the end of the Beatles’
album Sgt.
> Pepper, in the song A Day in the Life, which perfectly captures the
> orgasm-like timing of the ego-death realization buildup.
>
> The end of Cygnus X-1 is Rush’s exact equivalent to the build-up
in Day in the
> Life, so that we could say Cygnus X-1 is Rush’s “A Day in the
Life”.
>
>
> — Michael Hoffman
> Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 1507 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 26/03/2003
Subject: Re: Day of wrath, narrow aversion of control-loss disaster
>>Seminar with Dale Allison, author of _Jesus: Millennial Prophet_ begins
Monday, March 24th.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crosstalk2/message/12924
This scholarly discussion will be based around articles about Mr. Historical
Jesus’ interpretation of Jewish apocalyptic, including:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crosstalk2/files/hell.pdf
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crosstalk2/files/IdeologyandApocalyptic.pdf

The links are case-sensitive. Correction:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crosstalk2/files/HELL.PDF
Group: egodeath Message: 1508 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 26/03/2003
Subject: Jesus, king of the puppets in God’s arrived kingdom
Jesus, king of the puppets in God’s secretly arrived millenarian kingdom,
which is in fact as near as tonight’s sacred meal


I’m trying to formulate this as a question for Dale Allison, though I as yet
have no question, merely a more successful explanation of the apocalyptic mode
of conceptualization. I don’t assume I have anything to learn from Allison,
but any engagement has already proven helpful for clarifying. What should I
ask him: “Why, specifically and in detail, don’t you abandon your view and
adopt my superior view instead?”


Chapter drafts about Mr. Historical Jesus’ interpretation of Jewish
apocalyptic:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crosstalk2/files/HELL.PDF (case-sensitive)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crosstalk2/files/IdeologyandApocalyptic.pdf

In Ideology and Apocalyptic, Allison quotes his passage from the book
Apocalyptic Jesus:

“… a Jesus who proclaimed the nearness of the end in the first century must
have been a real human being. This is no small point. Docetism may have been
condemned long ago as a heresy, but it has never gone away. Much of the
popular Christianity I have known seems to think that Jesus was at least three
fourths divinity, no more than one quarter human being. If we go back to the
ancient church, it wasn’t much better. The theologians who confessed Jesus’
true humanity balked at the implications. . . . Here is one point at which the
Fathers failed us.”

In Ideology and Apocalyptic, Allison writes:
“… Jesus’ eschatological convictions belong to mythology, even though such a
thought is foreign to the way in which own mind looked at the last things. He
surely construed his eschatological expectations pretty much as most
pre-moderns have construed Genesis 1-3, that is, more or less literally.108
[108: See Allison, Jesus of Nazareth, pp. 152-69.] But just as the
mythological character of Genesis does not bar us from interpreting and even
appropriating the text, so too is it with the old eschatological expectations.
In fact, I take much of biblical eschatology to be akin to Platonism; both are
mythological ways of directing us beyond this world, a larger reality about
which we cannot speak literally because it transcends our mundane minds, which
have after all evolved in order to interact with the material world around
us.109 [109: See further George Tyrrell, Christianity at the Cross-roads
(London/New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1913). I find myself in essential
agreement. This in turn means that, in the end, I am close to where Dodd was,
the big difference being that I regard my interpretation as my interpretation,
not that of Jesus.] I would also assert that “the idea embodied in the
Eschatology of Jesus–the embodiment belonging to its own day–is that of the
ultimate triumph of God.”110 [110: Jackson, Eschatology, p. 350.]


In saying “I regard my interpretation as my interpretation, not that of
Jesus”, Allison asserts that the Historical Jesus was a mistaken and deluded
man who foolishly interpreted the apocalypse idea literally and taught that he
was the messiah of that literal apocalypse, while Allison himself holds a
sane, wise, and sober interpretation of the apocalypse idea as having its real
meaning in the realm of Platonism.

For Allison, what the apocalypse idea is really all about is a Platonism-type
philosophical concept that God will ultimately triumph, not that the
apocalypse will occur soon and is near in time.

I contrast, I present this truly sane, wise, and sober interpretation: Jesus
is an entirely mythic representation of the specific metaphysical experience
and conceptual realization which Hellenistic mystery-religion initiates and
Jewish mystics underwent subsequent to ingesting the sacred food and mixed
wine of the ritual meals that were standard and ubiquitous in the Hellenistic
world.

All the ideas swirling around the notion of “apocalyptic change of cosmic
rulership” make perfect sense and do not involve any confusion and
mistakenness on the part of Jesus, or rather, on the part of the skilled and
crafty mystic mythmakers who constructed the symbolic two-state,
meaning-flipping figure of Jesus so cleverly. The confusion is entirely on
the part of the uninitiated scholars. Dale Allison is the teacher who has a
mistaken interpretation of the idea of apocalypse.

Mr. Historical Jesus was completely correct: the end of time is as near as an
uninitiated, unregenerated follower’s last supper before taking up the cross
and thereby entering tonight into the secret kingdom of God, of which Jesus is
king — king of the metaphysical puppets, king of the enlightened, king of
“the Jews”, the elect who were predestined to realize in the mystic altered
state that there is no free will and no egoic moral agent to be the impure
carrier of moral sin and guilt.

All myth-religion of the Hellenistic era is ultimately and essentially
variations on these same themes. These type of ideas were standard in that
era; Christianity in its best form is a two-state play of signifiers that may
be more sophisticated and brilliant than even ancient Greek
tragedy/myth/religion and Jewish myth-religion.

This same tragi-comic two-state meaning-shifting was present in Greek and
Jewish religion, and from what I have seen, Christianity brought together the
cleverest of the Jewish and Hellenistic systems of meaning-flipping.

There was a certain boring similarity among the various Hellenistic
mystery-religions; they were too obviously equivalent, while the Jews were
admired for contributing a distinctive version that was mechanically
equivalent but stood apart in that it utterly reveled in the two-state
flipping, which required hyper-literalizing the surface, lower level of the
mythic symbol-system as pseudo-history.

Jewish religion was essentially a form of Hellenistic mystery-religion that
was entirely and determinedly translated into quasi-literal history while
retaining the consciousness that it was essentially an equivalent two-phase
meaning-flipping system pivoting around the ritual consumption of special food
and drink.

It’s as though there were 15 new mystery-religions including the most
synthetic of all, Sarapis, and bored heirophantic mystics sat around dreaming
up a new twist on the core engine, and translated the system into
pseudo-history. Instead of “the uninitiated and the initiated”, this would
become two nations, such as “the Jews and the Israelites”, “the Jews and the
Gentiles”, “the Jews and the Greeks”, and so on.

Of course the symbolic integrity of using contrasting nations to represent the
uninitatied and the initiated is challenged by the proposal that some Gentiles
may be saved — but these kind of “flaws” in the system were cleverly
integrated into the system. Dale Allison fails to recognize the humor present
when the scriptures pretend to “struggle” with these “problems” such as the
“problem” that Jesus’ prophecy of the end — taken literally — was obviously
false.

To the mystic-myth craftsmen, there are no serious problems, since the whole
system is just an artificial meaning-puzzle.

Similarly, there is a comical parody of intellectual struggle when the Paul
character “struggles” to nail down the specifics about when the living will
ascend into the kingdom of God, versus when the already bodily dead will
ascend — these subtle problems are intended to be ludicrous and comical,
mocking and making light of the absurdity that results when this synthetic
hyper-historicized version of the core mystery-religion is taken at its word
by the uninitiated.


Dale Allison holds that:
o Jesus and the other New Testament figures existed.

o Jesus believed and taught that there would be a literal apocalyptic
transformation of the world and its rulership, and it would happen soon.

o Jesus was mistaken that an apocalyptic transformation would happen soon; he
thought that a certain kind of intense and sudden political transformation of
the world would happen, but that kind of transformation didn’t happen.

o The OT and NT were written as serious history mixed with serious
supernatural religion.


I hold that:
o All the figures in the New Testament are purely and essentially mythic,
metaphorical, allegorical figures, with incidental exceptions such as the
Roman rulers.

o The Jesus figure was crafted as a focal point representing various aspects
of what the mystic-state initiate experiences in the standard Jewish mystic
initiation-feasts and Hellenistic mystery-religions centered around eating
sacred food and drinking mixed wine.

o The OT and NT were written as ironic tragi-comedy phrased as a clever
puzzle designed to flip between two matrixes of meaning, based on systematic
double-entendre as was used in Greek Attic tragedy.

o The Jesus figure was successfully crafted to support both meaning-matrixes,
so that the words attributed to him could be taken two ways: a literal
political apocalypse, or a mystic-experiencing apocalypse based on a
thoroughgoing specific transformation of the initiate’s mental worldmodel from
the specific egoic mental worldmodel to the specific transcendent mental
worldmodel regarding space, time, self, and control.

The designers of this apocalyptic Jesus figure were in full command of their
craft, and meant to craft and succeeded at crafting a figure that preached
literal apocalypse in an ambiguous way designed to flip between a distinct
coherent literalist meaning and a distinct coherent allegorical meaning.

The allegorical meaning was not vague or ethereal or subtle, but rather,
totally specific, consistent, and conceptually tangible: all the concepts or
elements such as “judgement”, “kingdom of God”, “evil”, “good”, “perdition”,
“death”, and “life” form a metaphor-system coherently describing the
transformation during the intense mystic altered state from the ego-delusion
centered mental worldmodel, based on the goat-like freewill assumption, to the
transcendent-centered mental worldmodel, based on the sheep-like experience
and realization of no-free-will.

For example, in the lower, pre-initiation meaning-matrix, freewill moral
agency is assumed, so “sin”, “good”, and “evil” are taken to mean a certain
axis that throughout assumes the freewill worldmodel. In the higher
meaning-matrix which the initiates have, no-free-will is taken as axiomatic,
so “sin”, “good”, and “evil” are redefined in concert. Being free of sin
means being free from the freewill moral agency delusion, good means believing
there is no free will, and evil means the worldmodel based on the freewill
assumption.

In the kingdom of God, we’re slaves or puppets of God, controlled by some
invisible “father” who/that is utterly hidden and transcendent. Because the
initiated mind considers everyone to be a puppet, all egoic guilt assumption
is taken away. In a particular, specifiable sense, deluded people are guilty
of assuming guilt-culpability, guilty of assuming they have free-will primary
sovereign control.

The crucifixion is purely a metaphor for how the mind during initiation puts
an end to the delusion of personal sovereign control over the mind’s own
thoughts. The expression represented in Jesus’ face is the expression of the
knowledge that there is no free will.

King Pentheus wrongly assumes he is a greater sovereign than Dionysus, but he
ends up suspended from the world-tree like a puppet dangling at the mercy of
the puppeteer. So is Jesus, as symbol of transcendent knowledge about
no-free-will, allegorized as the king of the puppets of God — king of the
ego-transcendent minds — the king of the Jews, where “Jew” here means
“initiate” or “mind that has experienced the sense of no-free-will and
conceptually grasped the principle of no-free-will”.

Peter cries out to Mary Magdalene: surely Jesus didn’t assert no-free-will; no
moral system could be based on that! Jesus did teach a still-workable ethics
for the “Jews”, who have renounced and crucified their freewill worldmodel:
how hard can it be? Love God, love your neighbor.


The “death/life” polarity is designed by the writers to flip from meaning
literal bodily death versus literal continuation of life, to meaning the
uniniated person’s liability to undergo mystic death and rebirth when
eventually initiated. The mind that has undergone mystic death has
permanently died that type of death and won’t die that death any more; their
life (transcendent mental model) is no longer subject to that death.

A classic effect in the intense mystic altered state is the sense of time
stoppage, the loss of the sense of free will, the loss of the sense of
separate-self, and the loss of the sense of self-control. The end of time
*is* near, as soon as the nearest meal of sacred food and mixed wine. The
last supper is the last meal the initiation candidates will ever eat while
living within the egoic mental worldmodel.

Their next meal, as Jesus’ next cup of mixed wine, will be in the kingdom of
God. The sacred meal shifts the center of control-attribution in the mind
from the ego to the transcendent, from the Ground of Being that is the cosmos,
or a compassionate transcendent controller thereof.

This is a plain, specific, sane, meaningful explanation, in contrast to the
vague “mythical misunderstanding” Dale Allison attributes to the Jesus who he
totally misreads as a literal, serious-thinking historical figure.

I am particularly interested in more detail about Allison’s belief that his
seminary students’ very popular “Docetism” is “a lie” and “misinformed”. His
insight-hungry seminary students, dead-serious inquirers, are reading Earl
Doherty’s book The Jesus Puzzle hidden underneath their course textbooks, and
he misunderstands this as “Docetism”, which would have an appearance of Jesus
literally moving about and making utterances just like the holographic doctor
in the Star Trek television series.

Conventional thinking might be startled by the view I’ve pulled together, but
what’s really crazy and incoherent is the historical Jesus scholars.

The entire “historical Jesus” mode of thinking inherently locks one into a
stance toward the scriptures that falls right into the trap that the
scriptures were designed to be, as a clever meaning-flipping system like Greek
tragedy, where the meaning pivots on reconnecting all the elements during the
intense mystic altered state precipitated by the world-shattering oral
teaching that occurred during the sacred meals of the Jews, the mystery
religions, the symposium philosophy parties, and the agape meals of the
earliest Christians.

To understand the Hellenistic religions, you have to think like the
Hellenists. How did the Hellenists think? Hellenists thought in terms of
2-stage meaning flipping, no-free-will, cosmic determinism, and the
distinction between the initiates, who have understanding, and the
uninitiated, who don’t have understanding.


The key to successful interpretation is the spirit of tragicomic irony; to
read the seriousness of the scriptures seriously is to fall into the trap
which the scriptures were designed to set. Without comic irony, the
scriptures remain read in the low mode of the uninitiated: serious
supernaturalism.

However, equally necessary is understanding that eating the divine flesh
causes the experience of no-free-will and loosens the mind’s cognitive
associations to enable the mental worldmodel to transform from a system based
on the animalistic freewill assumption to a system based on the no-free-will
axiom.

This is why the Eucharist is the absolute center of the liturgy and the
central pivot-point leading to Jesus’ crucifixion, when while eating and
drinking at the last supper, Jesus commissions Judas to betray him. That this
perfectly coherent and elegant explanation seems crazy exactly indicates how
truly crazy the scholarly world has become under the darkness of uninspired
literalist interpretation.

Contra Allison, Mr. Historical Jesus was not confused, or crazy, or incorrect,
and despite his nonexistence, could teach Allison a thing or three about the
Platonistic experience of apocalyptic. Repent, for the day of judgment is
indeed very near, and could even happen on this very night.


So what do you think — is my question ready to post to the Allison Seminar?

— Michael Hoffman
Egodeath.com


Seminar with Dale Allison:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allison-Seminar
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crosstalk2/message/12924


Related books:

The Apocalyptic Jesus: A Debate
Dale C. Allison, Marcus J. Borg, John Dominic Crossan, Stephen J. Patterson,
Robert J. Miller
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0944344895

Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet
Dale Allison
Jan. 1999
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0800631447

Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium
Bart Ehrman
Sep. 1999
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/019512474X

Book list: kingdom of God, apocalypse, Revelation, eschatology
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/7BYCVM3BJX05/103-
0184603-8834266


University lecture course about Historical Jesus as apocalyptic prophet by
Bart Ehman
http://www.teach12.com/ttc/assets/coursedescriptions/643.asp – “Why do the
earliest sources at our disposal, including the Gospel of Mark, portray Jesus
as a Jewish apocalypticist, one who anticipated that God was soon going to
intervene in the course of history to overthrow the forces of evil and
establish his good Kingdom here on earth? How close is this portrayal to life?
Did Jesus proclaim a coming Kingdom? How are his references to the coming of
the “Son of Man” to be understood in light of the best historical analysis and
evidence we can muster? … how do Jesus’ ethical teachings, his own
activities, and the events of his final days fit into this analysis? Why did
Jesus go to Jerusalem at Passover, and what did he plan to do once he got
there? What was the situation he found? What were the intentions of those he
met there, including the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate, the Temple
hierarchy, and the other Jewish authorities?” Lectures include Jesus and
Roman Rule, Jesus the Apocalyptic Prophet, The Apocalyptic Teachings of Jesus,
Other Teachings of Jesus in their Apocalyptic Context, The Deeds of Jesus in
their Apocalyptic Context, The Prophet of the New Millennium.
Group: egodeath Message: 1509 From: merker2002 Date: 27/03/2003
Subject: Re: Jesus, king of the puppets in God’s arrived kingdom
>This is why the Eucharist is the absolute center of the liturgy and
the
>central pivot-point leading to Jesus’ crucifixion, when while eating
and
>drinking at the last supper, Jesus commissions Judas to betray him.

So what is the higher meaning of this? Jesus as the Cosmic Ruler
(master of puppets) commands Judas to betray him?

Also, the lower meaning does not make sense. Why should
Jesus elect someone to be betrayed??? Why does he want to be betrayed
at all? This is strange because
usually both interpretations should make sense. Here,
the lower just doesn’t make sense.


regs,
merker
Group: egodeath Message: 1510 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 27/03/2003
Subject: High and low meaning of Judas; degrees of coherence
>>This is why the Eucharist is the absolute center of the liturgy and the
central pivot-point leading to Jesus’ crucifixion, when while eating and
drinking at the last supper, Jesus commissions Judas to betray him.


>So what is the higher meaning of this? Jesus as the Cosmic Ruler (master of
puppets) commands Judas to betray him?
>
>Also, the lower meaning does not make sense. Why should Jesus elect someone
to be betrayed??? Why does he want to be betrayed at all? This is strange
because usually both interpretations should make sense. Here, the lower just
doesn’t make sense.
>
>regs,
>merker


There is a certain sort of coherence to low-level Christian thinking, though
it is fraught with problems — more problems than the relatively consistent
high-level interpretation. The lower mind is accustomed to fudging the gaps,
and there is always recourse to “It’s a mystery that is beyond the
comprehension of the sin-clouded mind.”

In high myth-religion, all the characters are aspects of the initiate’s
psyche. Judas, Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Virgin Mary, King Saul, King David,
Absolom, Balaam, Beloved Disciple, Lazarus, the Rich Man, the leper, the blind
man, the devil, the demons, Peter, the woman at the well, Jesse, Jacob, Adam,
Eve, the serpent — all are aspects of the initiate’s psyche.

So the question is, what aspect of the psyche does Judas represent? Judas
represents the egoic mind’s interesting, innate and ultimately divine
potential for self-betrayal. Judas is the self-betraying potential of egoic,
personal self-control. The mind in the experienced mystic state learns how to
pit self-control system against itself catastrophically, so that the mind
discovers how it can make its self-control contradict and cancel-out its own
logic and power.

Here the mind splits into a transcendent aspect, in some sense a “higher
controller”, and a lower aspect, which is mundane, ordinary self-control. The
latter is “Judas”, the former is “Jesus”. Each initiate must commission their
own inner Judas-nature to betray the actual logical flaws of personal
self-control, for the mind to kill the delusion of the egoic personal center
of control.

Mystic-state dynamics are very logical, but the allegory layer over them is
always a leaky abstraction. Egoic thinking is also a leaky abstraction: it
normally works well enough, but it works imperfectly, and when the mind
carefully studies why the egoic self-control logic works imperfectly, this can
lead to enlightenment.

Higher rationality is perfect in some way, but the mythic allegorization
layer, at least in the Christian system, is imperfect even when fully
understood as a model of transcendent insight and initiation dynamics. The
Christian system is designed as a two-layer meaning-flipping system, so it is
that much more interesting and tricky to make both the higher interpretation
and the lower interpretation watertight.

What does the Judas character mean in the lower meaning-mode? It’s clear,
everyone knows, that when Peter has the Beloved Disciple ask Jesus “who will
betray you?”, Jesus answers, “The one to whom I give bread.” Jesus gives
bread to Judas and actively tells Judas, “Go do what you are going to do; do
your thing; do what you exist to do; carry out your designed role; be what you
are; manifest your nature.”

This is not misunderstood; it’s clear that Jesus tells Judas to betray him.
There is no debate about that among the low-level Christians. The only
question for them is, *why* would Jesus do that? The low answer is that Jesus
accepted the will of God, no matter what, and knew that this betrayal is part
of God’s plan because God had determined since forever that this crucifixion
would happen as God’s way of saving sinners.

It was God’s will that Judas do his thing, and God’s will that Jesus indicate
full acceptance of Judas’ action and its consequence by actively commanding
Judas to do what God had willed to happen, what God had willed Judas to do as
part of the plan. Even when bad things happen to the Jews, everything is part
of God’s plan. Low-level Christian thinking is used to this way of thinking
and accepts what coherence it has.

Low religion isn’t totally incoherent; it’s coherent overall, in practice, as
a practical mode of mental operation. Egoic thinking is inherently based on
sand, a weak foundation of confusion. It is a house that holds together under
mundane conditions, but not under the storm of loose cognition.

The child’s thinking is workable and useful for the conditions encountered by
the child, but fails when encountering broader conditions such as the
loose-cognition state. The standard religious death and rebirth metaphor is
based on this inherent failure-potential. The mental worldmodel jumps from a
less-coherent version to a more-coherent version.


— Michael Hoffman
http://www.egodeath.com — simple theory of the ego-death and rebirth
experience
Group: egodeath Message: 1511 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 27/03/2003
Subject: Scope of Christian mythic system to be explained
My overall interpretive framework is settled, the period of revolutionary
science in this field is over, and now I’m in the period of normal science,
which amounts to filling in the holes within this framework. I can describe
the sorts of interpretations that have a large degree of fit. Some puzzle
pieces have to be shaken around for a couple years to fine-tune the fit.

There’s a certain point where the puzzle starts coming together routinely and
I’m into that phase, with much work remaining, including turning the puzzle
pieces several ways to find the best fit. Some ideas, I’m certain of — such
as goat = freewill, sheep = no-free-will. Others, like “vicarious atonement”
(God had such compassion on sinners that he gave his son as a sacrifice), I
have the right kind of interpretation but am still evaluating what is the most
cogent way of putting it.

The Christian 2-state meaning-system really is an assorted collection of
separate metaphor domains:
o “Redeem” is a metaphor based on wartime exchange of prisoner-slaves and
slave-trade conventions.
o The millennial messiah idea is based on revolutionary war leader figures.
o Sheep vs. goat is based on domesticated livestock.
o Astrotheology is also a transcendent symbolic system integrated into the
Christian system as the 12 disciples.
o Son of man, reborn, sacrifice of one’s firstborn son, hating your family,
becoming God’s son, this generation — all are metaphors from the “family” and
“generational” metaphor-space.

A given Christian mythic element can participate in several ways in each of
these allegory domains, so it really comes down to artistic, literary, or high
poetic judgment to decide which points to highlight, just as the three
synoptic Gospels all choose substantially different metaphors to emphasize.
In the end, the Christian mythic symbol-system is gluttonous, a catholic and
universal black hole of meaning into which everyone attempted to connect every
possible transcendent metaphor system.

No wonder it ends up being such a confusing, but also such a delightfully
crackable, meaning-puzzle. It’s got the skilled mystic-state allegorists
working as hard to unravel the many threads of meaning, as were required to
weave together all those threads borrowed from all the metaphor systems
everyone could think of, like a huge collective project that took place over
some centuries. Thus it is inherently debatable what the “main
metaphor-system” of Christianity is.

Luther Martin characterizes all mystery religion ultimately being about an
attempt to account for and relate to cosmic determinism — that’s like my
non-metaphorical, non-poetic core theory of transcendent knowledge.

When we understand the Christian coagulation of hundreds of disparate
transcendent symbol systems, combining many systems from Jewish religion,
Hellenistic religion, and philosophy, Christian symbolism is like a grab-bag
of all Hellenistic thinking and metaphor-systems all jumbled together. There
was much debate and contention in which alignment of allegory-domains would
win out.

The result in the canon was a viable compromise. Even then, there are
multiple canons even among the top sects: the Protestant canon excludes the
Apocrypha, which is perhaps why the Protestants are so innocent of thinking
spiritually.

The best example of how it’s hard to say exactly what the “Christian”
metaphor-system comprises, as a set of allegory-elements, is the Mary
Magdalene as Beloved Disciple and the one who Jesus pairs up with the Virgin
Mary from the cross: is this Mary Magdalene tradition “important”, is it
really a part of the Christian symbol-system, or not? It depends on which
sect you talk to, which group of religionists you talk to.

I would treat Mary Magdalene the same as the Apocrypha are treated:
semi-canonical; not absolutely essential. There are positively essential
meanings, optional meanings, and anti-essential meanings, such as the
crucified and resurrected king theme (essential), the Mary “John” Magdalene
theme (partly In, partly Out with respect to the canon), and the
beyond-the-pale two-gods theme which isn’t in the canon.

In addition, there are secret themes such as the entheogenic nature of all the
meals in the canon. The Christian system is completely unidentifiable if we
consider the cross and resurrection optional — you have no theory of
Christian mythic meaning if your theory omits the “crucified and resurrected
king” theme. In contrast, a theory of Christian myth can be quite complete
without accounting for the largely heretical Mary Magdalene theme which is
only half-reflected in the canon.

In contrast to the book “Jesus and the Goddess”, my strategy is the principle
that the best theory should focus first of all on the narrowest canon: making
full rational sense out of the Protestant canonical system of myth as it is
scoped in the conservative Protestant churches and books.

Then, if you can succeed at turning Protestant myth into a profound system of
initiation and enlightenment, expand the theory to cover the broader Christian
myth-system, including the Apocrypha, the full Mary “John” Magdalene
tradition, and Gnostic systems — or, “the Gnostic system”, again arriving at
the problem of narrow vs. broad, and single vs. multiple, varieties of a
myth-system.


These considerations apply to interpreting “the Islamic myth-system” and “the
Buddhist myth-system” as well: given the tremendous variations within each
religion, with multiple competing systems of lower-level and higher-level
symbol-systems, it’s questionable whether one can talk about “determining the
meaning of the Buddhist system of allegory”, since there is no single,
determinately bounded system.

We can’t solve the problem of what a myth-system means if we can’t even agree
what mythic elements are to be included in the scope of the meaning-system to
decode. If we agree that Mr. Historical Buddha taught demons, karma, rebirth,
deities, nirvana, and so on, then we think these mythic items must be covered
by a rational decoding in terms of the core theory of transcendent knowledge.

If we fancy that Mr. Buddha only taught clear, rational, direct things — only
including karma, for example — then we only expect a rational decoding of
“Buddhism” to talk about that set of mythic elements.


If I simply say that I have cracked the puzzle of “the Christian mythic
system”, what mythic elements will people assume I have explained? A great
example is, will they assume that I have a decoding of veneration of the
saints, or purgatory? Or would those be considered peripheral to “the
Christian mythic system”?

The best, most practical approach seems to be some sort of multi-layered
approach, distinguishing between explaining “the core Christian mythic system”
vs. “the overall, broad Christian mythic system” which would include the Mary
“John” Magdalene system (partly canonical) and the Apocryphal (canonical for
some leading sects but not others), and purgatory (not canonical for any sect,
but a major, established part of the leading sect’s tradition).

A theory explaining “the Christian mythic system” is poor if it can’t explain
the narrowest system — the Protestant mythic system, which knows nothing of
the Mary “John” Magdalene mythic theme — or the most popular though
extra-canonical system: the Catholic traditional mythic system, including
purgatory.

If you tell a Protestant that you have an explanation of the Christian mythic
system, they will assume you are strictly talking about the crucified and
resurrected king, but it won’t occur to them that you would explain purgatory
or Mary “John” Magdalene. Similarly, if you tell a Catholic that you have an
explanation of the Catholic or Christian mythic system, they will assume that
you are prepared to explain the mystic-state metaphysical meaning of
purgatory, and possibly the Apocrypha.

In the book “Jesus and the Goddess”, Freke and Gandy make a strategic mistake
of implying that the only way to make profound rational sense of Christianity
is by completely violating the scope of the canon, as though only by dragging
in the full Mary “Beloved Disciple” Magdalene tradition and the entire
“two-gods” tradition can Christianity serve as a profound, fully enlightening
system.

In fact, the Protestant tradition and canon, in which Mary Magdalene is not an
essential or active component, has been proven to be a complete, sufficient
system of conveying a 2-state meaning-flipping dynamic, expressing the switch
from egoic to transcendent thinking. When I first made the connection between
helplessness, no-free-will, danger, and the meaning of the Cross as a
willingly self-cancelled pseudo-sovereign, this revelation had nothing to do
with Mary “Beloved Disciple” Magdalene.

The Christian mythic system was always designed to be a universal, catholic
collection of the elements of all the religions known to the Roman empire —
this necessarily means that in practice, some of the areas of this giant
myth-combination ended up being more central, and other areas non-central, and
other areas ended up being considered important only for some sects (purgatory
in the Catholic version, two-gods in the Gnostic version).

The Protestant version of the Christian mythic system considers itself to be
uniquely founded on the core idea of salvation through faith alone, a faith
completely given as a gift to the utter sinner by God’s action alone.

We also ideally would need variations of the “explanation of the Christian
mythic system” for different varieties of Protestantism, such as Protestant
scholasticism (such as Reformed dogmatics theology) vs. late 20th-Century
evangelical Christianity: they technically have the same scope of mythic
elements, but there is a very different emphasis and character of approach to
those elements.

So the one who would explain “Christian” myth has some work to do just to
define *which varieties* of the *family* of Christian mythic versions will be
covered.

My inclination and poetic judgment as a theorist is that the first order of
business should be explaining what is common to all the leading sects — this
must mean explaining the Protestant system according not only to the
Protestant canon but also as heavily filtered through the Protestant
*tradition* which has surely entrenched itself despite all the efforts to
apply the principle of “scripture only, *not* adding extra-canonical Church
tradition”.

It’s debatable whether this means the ultra-purified Reformed dogmatics
theology, which may or may not be representative of de-facto, actual, lived
Protestantism. In short, the theorist of Christianity should define “typical,
common-core Christianity” which would surely include the crucified and
resurrected king, but not purgatory or Mary “Beloved Disciple” Magdalene.

There may be some good reason why I have addressed solving this scope of
common-core Christianity and was somewhat shaped by the denomination Church of
Christ. That denomination is an ideal reference point; it is definitive of
common-core Christianity in so many ways. It strives very hard to strictly
adhere to the elements of liturgy and practice as recorded in the New
Testament.

Their effort is highly distorted by not reading Greek and not understanding
the cultural context and not understanding the initiation aspects of mystery
religion, but that is standard for modern common-core Christianity. This
denomination was created to try to be as non-divisive as possible —
eliminating swearing to “man-made confessional statements” such as the
Westminster Confession — while trying to strip down the liturgy until it has
nothing but (their version of) what’s in the New Testament.

In that sense, this denomination is as ideal as can be found to represent the
minimum common core of the Christian mythic system. It’s a “conservative”
denomination in that it’s literalist, retaining a generally literalist belief
in heaven, hell, sin, judgement, and vicarious atonement.

Now you might say that “typical Christianity” is fuzzed-out, foggy and hazy,
mere mundane ethics that has essentially cast aside the Christian mythic
system, lacking a supernaturalist conception of the myth as well as an intense
mystic-state conception of the myth.

Is washed-out liberal Christianity a participant in the “common core”
Christian myth? To the degree that washed-out liberal Christianity (rejecting
low myth, ignorant of truly high myth) retains the Christian myth-system at
all, that brand of Christianity continues to participate in what I propose to
call the “common core Christian mythic system”. Even if such Christianity
foolishly rejects the idea of Jesus’ resurrection, it still is fully aware
that the resurrection was always considered to be the most essential thing.

Same with sects that so misunderstand the Eucharist that they have more or
less abandoned even going through the empty motions — I believe the Salvation
Army omits the Eucharist.

If a theory of Christian myth needs to be most widely relevant across all
Christian sects by a strategy of first decoding the “common core” Christian
myth, a perfect quick way of defining the scope of “common core” Christian
myth is to point to the myth-system that is held by the Church of Christ
denomination, which can be characterized by the keywords “minimalist”,
“conservative”, “literalist”, “scripture focused”, and “not hyperdogmatic like
pure Calvinism/confessional creeds”.

They are dogmatic and literalist, but don’t press the theological points to
the max; they are not “Protestant scholastics” and don’t make purity of
theology their foundation of salvation — the latter is not “common core
Christian myth”, but an eccentricity that is pretty much unique to one
denomination.

I’m not concerned here with defining the most true or coherent Christianity,
but rather, the most universally representative version of Christianity in
practice, with the greatest number of mythic elements that are shared by the
greatest number of sects. Imagine transparent sheets showing the spread of
mythic elements held by each sect, then overlay them — what is the
overlapping area? The crucified and resurrected king, and a narrow set of
other elements.

Sects like Church of Christ would fall entirely into that common overlapping
area. The Church of Christ sect, which claims to reject denominationalism
entirely, is extremely representative of what mythemes all Christian sects
share in common, probably because this sect tries as hard as possible to stay
within the worship style that is recorded in the scriptures, trying not to add
anything from Church tradition.

For example, icons are not mentioned in the New Testament, nor instrumental
music, not baptism of infants, so these aren’t present. But the Eucharist is
mentioned, and singing is mentioned, so these are prominently figured.
Actually this sect does even less – just a subset of things mentioned in the
New Testament.

Since the range of liturgical practice in this sect is so restricted to a
conservative subset of what’s in the New Testament, this sect’s restricted set
of Christian mythic motifs is an excellent definition of the scope of the
“common core Christian mythic system” and thus defines one extreme that the
theory of Christian myth must successfully decode.

At the other extreme would be the Catholic system, and beyond that, the most
complete theory would need to explain heretical and Gnostic Christian systems
as Freke and Gandy have begun to cover so well.

My criticism of Freke and Gandy is just like of Ken Wilber: because they scale
their explanation of “the Christian myth” only to the broadest and most
encompassing scale, their core theory falls short of breaking through in a way
that would explain the real meaning of Jesus that sweeps across all versions
of Christianity. They’ve done a fair job of explaining Gnostic Christianity,
but not an effective job of explaining the meaning of Jesus as he sits within
the common core Christian myth.

They have explained some religion, but not the Christian myth-religion as it
actually exists in all the mainstream sects. What I seek to do is to explain
the Christian myth-religion as it actually exists in all the mainstream sects,
which means, excluding a focus of Mary “Beloved Disciple” Magdalene.

*After* that common-core mythic system is decoded, then all variants such as
the Catholic and Gnostic variants, which are supersets of the common core, can
be much better and more profoundly explained. If a theory of the Christian
myth-religion covers the mythic system as held by the Church of Christ, which
is a certain minimalist variant, then the theory covers the core of all major
versions of the Christian mythic system.


— Michael Hoffman
http://www.egodeath.com — simple theory of the ego-death and rebirth
experience
Group: egodeath Message: 1512 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 27/03/2003
Subject: Bennett/Ruck’s cannabis Christ in Door Xn magazine
http://www.thedoormagazine.com

The Door, a religious satire magazine, March/April 2003, p. 40 has a half-page
article about Chris Bennett’s theory published in High Times magazine about
early Christian use of cannabis products, with a favorable quote from Carl
Ruck. The entheogen theory has been communicated by being publically
satirized.

I have asked the scholars to emphasize the use of multiple psychoactive plant
products — that point is too often hidden in footnotes. Bennett tends to
portray the Old and New Testaments as being informed *only* by cannabis, but
we should think in terms of “mixed wine” which could contain all known plants
in combination, including datura, ergot, Amanita, psilocybin, mandrake, opium,
alcohol, cannabis, and various other inebriants.

Instead of showing that one religion used one entheogen at one point in time
(the start), it’s time to show that all religions used all known entheogens at
all points in time. It’s only modern-era blindness and denseness that makes
us so grossly underestimate the extent of use of entheogens. Entheogen
scholars ended up selling themselves short, inadvertently ending up
communicating the assertion that entheogens generally were *not* used in
religion — the opposite of the intended message.


— Michael Hoffman
Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 1513 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 27/03/2003
Subject: Fundamental Object Of Veneration For Contemplating The Mind
The following, is a writing by Sun Lotus (1273) It contains the
essense of High Mahayana Buddhism, as presented in 13th century
Japan. (Translated into literal english by Martin Bradley.

Enjoy.

dc



Title:

“The Thesis On The Instigator’s Fundamental Object Of Veneration For
Contemplating The Mind For The Fifth Five Hundred Year Period After
The Tathagata’s Passing Over To Nirvana



In the fifth fascicle of Universal Desistance from Troublesome
Worrying in Order to See Clearly, Whether you have three thousand
existential spaces or three thousand such qualities, the result is
the same, even if the way of going about it is different, it
says, `The one mind is endowed with ten dharma realms and since each
dharma realm is again endowed with the other ten, it becomes a
hundred dharma realms. Each realm is provided with thirty kinds of
existential space so we then have a hundred dharma realms furnished
with three thousand kinds of existential spaces. These three
thousand are contained in a single instant of thought. If there is
no mind then that is the end of it. But if there is even the tiniest
scrap of mind it is endowed with the three thousand.’ The text
continues until, `Because it becomes what is called the objective
realm of utterness and it is here where the meaning lies.’ Another
text says that each realm is endowed with the three kinds of
existential space.

A question is asked: does Profound Significance specify the
term `the one instant of thought containing three thousand
existential spaces’? The answer given is that Myoraku says, “It is
not specified.” The question is asked: does Textual Explanations
mention the term `the one instant of thought containing three
thousand existential spaces’? The answer is given: Myoraku says, “It
is not mentioned.” The question is asked: how does Myoraku explain
this? The answer is given: “Neither of the two texts have yet
mentioned the one instant of thought containing three thousand
existential spaces.” The question is asked: do the first, second,
third and fourth fascicles of Stopping in order to Contemplate
mention the term `the one instant of thought containing three
thousand existential spaces’? The answer is given: “Not at all”. The
question is asked: how can you prove this? The answer is given:
Myoraku states, “On coming to the exposition on how to correctly
contemplate the Dharmas in Stopping in order to Contemplate, he
particularly uses the three thousand as a guide.” Then there is a
query: in the second fascicle of Profound Significance it
says, `Again, each dharma realm contains the nine other dharma
realms; in those hundred dharma realms there are a thousand of the
such qualities.’ In the first fascicle of Textual Explanations it
says, `As each one of the senses and its object is endowed with the
ten dharma realms of which, again, each one is equipped with its own
ten respective realms; then in each one of these ten realms there
are ten such qualities, which makes it come to one thousand.’ In
Profound Significance of Kannon it says, `If the ten dharma realms
are mutually endowed, which makes them come to a hundred dharma
realms and then there are a thousand kinds of the such qualities of
nature and appearance darkly hidden in the mind, they may not be
before our eyes but the mind is fully endowed with them.’ The
question is asked: is the term `the one instant of thought
containing three thousand existential spaces’ mentioned in the first
four volumes of Stopping in order to Contemplate? The reply is:
Myoraku says, “It is not.” The question is asked: how does he
explain this? Answer: in the fifth fascicle of Broad Elucidation it
says, `If you aspire to correct contemplation the complete practice
has not yet been fully discussed, moreover there are twenty five
dharmas to work through which in practice give rise to
understanding. In all conscience they are to be endured as an
expedient means for correct observance. For this reason the first
six fascicles all may be counted as bringing about understanding.’
Also in the same book it says it is for this reason that when
Stopping in order to Contemplate comes to explain how one should
contemplate the dharmas correctly, the three thousand was
particularly used as a compass. This therefore is the final
superlative of the ultimate discourse. This is why Shoan, in the
middle of his introduction, affirms that it is Tendai’s discourse on
the gateway to the Dharma, which he himself practised in his
innermost, being. Indeed he had a reason for this and entreats those
who seek to read this work not to seek affinities elsewhere.

That wise person Tendai widely spread abroad the Dharma for thirty
years. In twenty-nine years he expounded all the implications of
Profound Significance and Textual Explanations, he also made clear
the five periods and eight teachings as well as the hundred realms
and the thousand such qualities. Not only did he refute the
fallacies of the previous five hundred years but also brought to
light that which had not yet been expounded by the Indian teachers
of dogma. The Universal Teacher Shoan said, “Even the Indian
Universal Discourse is not of his calibre so why should we go as far
as to trouble ourselves talking about the scholars of China? This is
not boastful arrogance, the nature of his Dharma is just as it is.”
What hopelessness it was that the latter scholars of Tendai let
those thieves, the founders of the Flower Garland [Kegon] and True
Word [Shingon] schools, steal and spirit away the weighty treasure
of the one instant of thought containing three thousand existential
spaces and then, ironically, they became fellow disciples of those
schools. The Universal Teacher Shoan already knew this when he
commented with grief, “Should this principle fall away the future
will be bleak indeed.”

The question is asked: what is the difference between the hundred
realms, the thousand such qualities and the one instant of thought
containing three thousand existential spaces? The given reply is
that the hundred realms and the thousand such qualities are limited
to the realm of sentient beings, whereas the one instant of thought
containing three thousand existential spaces comprises both the
sentient and the non-sentient. Not quite understanding, it is asked
if the ten such qualities extend to the non-sentient, then do you
mean to say that plants and trees are endowed with mind and are able
to become Buddhas like sentient beings? The given reply is that this
is a matter that is difficult to believe and difficult to
understand. With Tendai there are two things that are difficult to
believe and difficult to understand: one is the difficulty of
believing and understanding with regards to the gateway of the
teaching; the other is the difficulty of believing and understanding
with regard to the gateway to contemplation. The difficulty of
believing and understanding with regard to the gateway of the
teaching is that the Buddha preached in all the sutras of the former
teachings that people of the two vehicles and people of incorrigible
disbelief will not ever become Buddhas in the future and that the
Lord of the Teaching, Shakyamuni, became correctly awakened for the
first time during his historical lifetime, but when we come to both
the temporary and original gateways of the Dharma Flower Sutra both
these arguments are demolished. One Buddha with two contradictory
arguments like fire and water, can anyone believe him? This is what
is difficult to believe and difficult to understand as regards the
gateway of the teaching. What is difficult to believe and difficult
to understand concerning the gateway to contemplation is the hundred
realms, the thousand such qualities and the one instant of thought
containing three thousand existential spaces, as well as the two
dharmas of mind and materiality of the ten such qualities, in that
which is insentient. Nevertheless, the two kinds of image, both
those that are painted and those made of wood, have been permitted
in the canons within and outside the Buddha teaching as fundamental
objects of veneration. But what lies behind the significance of this
comes solely from the school of Tendai. If the cause and fruition of
mind and materiality were not placed upon plants and trees, it would
be of no advantage to reverently depend on wooden and painted images
as fundamental objects of veneration. Mistrustfully, it is asked in
which texts are the two dharmas of the cause and fruition of the ten
such qualities being in plants, trees, abode and terrain, to be
found? The answer is given that in the fifth fascicle of Stopping in
order to Contemplate it says, `The existential space of abode and
terrain is again endowed with the ten kinds of dharma [such
qualities]. Therefore an evil abode and terrain has its appearance,
nature, substance and strength.’ In the sixth fascicle of
Explanatory Notes it says, `Appearance only exits as materiality;
substance, strength, action and affinity take on the combined
significance of materiality and mind; cause and fruition only exist
as mind and requital only as materiality.’ In Discourse of the Vajra
Scapel it says, `Accordingly a blade of grass, a tree, a pebble or a
speck of dust, each one has the Buddha nature, the cause to bring
about its fruition as well as being endowed with the affinities and
consequential causes for becoming a Buddha.’

The question is asked: now having heard where these teachings come
from, what is the meaning of contemplating the mind? The given
answer is: contemplating the mind is the contemplation of our own
minds so that we may see the ten dharma realms, this is what is
called contemplating the mind. It is, for instance, as though we may
see the six organs of sense of other people but because we do not
see these six sense organs on our own faces we do not know they are
there, but, on being confronted with a clear mirror, we then see for
the first time that we too have these six organs. For instance, even
though all the sutras in various places refer to the six paths of
the unenlightened and the four holy tendencies, but by not looking
into the clear mirrors of either the Dharma Flower Sutra or
Universal Desistance from Troublesome Worrying in Order to See
Clearly, which was expounded by the Universal Teacher Tendai, we
cannot know about our being endowed with the ten realms, the
thousand such qualities and the one instant of thought containing
three thousand existential spaces.

The question is asked, in what text of the Dharma Flower Sutra is
the `one instant of thought containing three thousand existential
spaces’ to be found and how does Tendai explain this? The answer is
given in the first fascicle of the Dharma Flower Sutra in the
Chapter on Expedient Means it says, `By being a sentient being I
wish to open their Buddha knowing and perception.’ This is the nine
realms being endowed with the realm of the Buddha. In Chapter on the
Life Span it says, `It is a universally primordial distance since I
became a Buddha, my allotted life span comprises incalculable asogi
kalpas and dwells in eternity without coming to an end. All you good
men, even now the allotted life span of when I originally attained
to the practice of the bodhisattva path has yet to be exhausted, it
will be again twice that number.’ This sutric text is the Buddha
being endowed with the nine realms. In the Sutra it
says, `Daibadatta’ and the text continues until, `…the Tathagata
Tenno.’ This is the realm of hell being endowed with the realm of
the Buddha. In the Sutra it says, `The first was named Ramba’, the
text continues until, `Only those of you who ably hold onto and
protect the name of the Dharma Flower will have immeasurable
happiness.’ This is the realm of the hungry demons being endowed
with the ten realms. In the Sutra it says, `The Dragon King’s
daughter’, the text continues until, `…became universally and
correctly awakened.’ This is the realm of animality being endowed
with the ten realms. In the Sutra it says, `Baji the Ashura King’,
the text continues until, `…on hearing the one metrical hymn or the
one phrase they will attain to anuttara samyak sambodhi’ [the
universal and correct awakening]. This is the realm of the Ashuras
being endowed with the ten realms. In the Sutra it says, `Supposing
that people for the sake of the Buddha’, the text continues
until, `All of them have already attained to the Buddha Path.’ This
is the realm of humanity being endowed with the ten realms. In the
Sutra it says, `Daibon the Deva King’, the text continues
until, `Just like us will certainly attain to the Buddha harvest.’
This is the deva realm endowed with the ten realms. In the Sutra it
says, `Sharihotsu’, the text continues until, `Keko Tathagata.’

This is the realm of the hearers of the voice being endowed with the
ten realms. In the Sutra it says, `Those who seek to be awakened by
affinities, monks and nuns’, the text continues until, `by putting
your palms together with a mind of reverence and wishing to hear the
Path to complete fulfilment.’ This is the realm of those awakened by
affinities being endowed with the ten realms. In the Sutra it
says, `The countless numbers of Bodhisattvas who surge up from the
earth’ the text continues until, `the truly pure universal Dharma.’
This is the bodhisattva realm being endowed with the ten realms. In
the Sutra it says, `Sometimes I speak of my own person and sometimes
I talk about others’, which is to say that the Buddha realm is
endowed with the ten realms.

The question is asked: if on looking at the six organs of sense on
my own face or on somebody else, I cannot yet see the ten realms in
myself or in others, how can I believe in them? The answer is given:
it says in Chapter on the Teacher of the Dharma in the Dharma Flower
Sutra, `It is difficult to believe and difficult to understand.’ In
the Chapter on the Precious Stupa it says, `The six difficult and
nine easy acts.’ The Universal Teacher Tendai says, “Because both
the temporary and original gateways contradict the past sutras they
are difficult to believe and difficult to understand.” The Universal
Teacher Shoan says, “In view of this fact the Buddha makes it his
overriding concern; how could you take this to be easy to
understand?” The Universal Teacher Dengyo says, “The Dharma Flower
Sutra is by far the most difficult to believe and difficult to
understand because it is according to his own awakened mind. Those
who had the correct disposition of being in the world during the
Buddha’s lifetime, in addition to their deeply entrenched karmic
relationship with him, had the Lord of the Teaching Shakyamuni, the
Buddha Taho, all the Buddha emanations of the ten directions, the
countless numbers of Bodhisattvas who surged up from the earth as
well as Monju and Miroku to help goad them into understanding, yet
even then there were people who failed to believe. Five thousand
left their seats, devas and men were moved elsewhere. If it was like
this during the correct and formal phases of the Dharma, how is it
going to be at the beginning of its final phase? Were you to glibly
believe then it would not be the Correct Dharma.”

The question is asked: as regards the sutric texts and the
explanations of Tendai and Shoan there are no ensnaring doubts, only
what is being said is that fire is water and black is white,
supposing that even these are things that were said by the Buddha,
it is difficult to believe and accept them. Every now and then I
take a look at other people’s faces but they are only limited to the
realm of humanity and I cannot see any of the other realms, again it
is the same with my own face. How can I bring about a mind of faith?
Answer: if you look at other people’s faces from time to time,
sometimes there is joy, sometimes there is anger and sometimes
equanimity, other times there appears greed, at others they reveal
stupidity or even flattering deceit. Anger is hell, greed is the
hungry demon, stupidity is animality, flattering deceit is the
ashura, joy is the deva and equanimity the quality of mankind. In
the physical aspect of the faces of others the six paths of the
unenlightened are altogether present, whereas the four holy
tendencies by not being manifest and latent you do not see; but then
if you look carefully for details they become apparent.

The question is asked: even though my understanding about the six
paths of the unenlightened is not entirely clear, on the whole I
must agree that it seems to be that we are furnished with them; but
how is it that the four holy tendencies are not apparent at all? The
answer is given: previously you doubted the six paths of the
unenlightened within the realm of humanity, nevertheless you agreed
with me through my emphasising this point by putting forward
analogies; should it not be the same with the four holy tendencies?
In an endeavour to add some justification I will recapitulate a ten
thousandth part. The transitory nature of what we call our
existential space is right before our eyes, so how can you say that
the realm of the two vehicles does not exist in the realm of
humanity? A wicked man with no regrets can have love and affection
for his own wife and children; this is an aspect of the bodhisattva
realm. Only the Buddha realm is difficult to discern but by the fact
that we are endowed with the nine other realms you must emphatically
believe it and have no doubts or perplexities about it. In the text
of the Dharma Flower Sutra where it explains the realm of humanity
it says, `By being a sentient being I wish to open their own Buddha
knowing and perception.’ In the Nirvana Sutra it says, `Even though
the people who study the universal vehicle only have eyes of flesh,
when you put it into words they become the eyes of the Buddha.’ What
the Common Mortal, who is born in the final era, believes in the
Dharma Flower Sutra is that the realm of humanity is fully endowed
with that of the Buddha.

The question is asked: what the Buddha says about each of the ten
realms being mutually furnished with the same ten realms is
understandably clear, although naturally it is difficult for our
inferior minds to believe and accept that we are endowed with the
Dharma realm of the Buddha. Now, this time if I do not acquire faith
I shall become a person of incorrigible disbelief. I beg you to show
your universal loving kindness and make me believe so that I may be
saved from the hell of incessant suffering. The answer is given: if
you do not already believe after having seen and heard the sutric
text of the single universal matter of cause and affinity, then how
can anyone from Shakyamuni to the bodhisattvas of the four
dependences as well as we from the final era, whose reasoning is not
separate from the Buddha nature, save and protect you from
disbelief? By all means I will try to tell you; there were people
who could not be awakened through meeting the Buddha but on the part
of Anan and others they were able to attain to the Path. There exist
two opportunities: one is by seeing the Buddha and attaining to the
Path through the Dharma Flower, the second is without seeing the
Buddha and attaining to the Path through the Dharma Flower. Besides,
before the Buddha teaching many of the Taoist and Confucianists in
China as well as the Brahmans and followers of the four Vedas in
India were able, through these affinities, to come to the correct
view of life. Again, many, many bodhisattvas and common mortals who,
by listening to the sutras of the universal vehicle of the Flower
Garland [Kegon], Everywhere Equal [Hodo] and Wisdom [Hannya]
periods, came to be aware of their affinity with the seeds sown in
the primordial distance by the Buddha Daitsu. One might suppose they
were the people who were awakened on their own through the
scattering of blossoms and the falling of leaves or those who
attained to the Path outside the Buddha teaching. Then there are
those people who did not have the binding affinities with the seeds
sown in the past and become attached to the provisional teachings or
the lesser vehicle, even if they do find the Dharma Flower Sutra
they are unable to escape their vision of these provisional and
lesser teachings. But because they take their individual viewpoint
to be the correct meaning, they take the Dharma Flower Sutra to be
the same as the teachings of the lesser vehicle or the Flower
Garland Sutra or the Dainichi Sutra or even place it lower. All
these teachers are inferior to the wise and holy men of the
Confucian and Brahmanic doctrines. For the time being let us put
this aside. To formulate the mutual possession of the ten worlds is
fire in a stone or flowers within a tree and even though this is
hard to believe, these things do happen on meeting with the right
affinities and are quite credible. Nevertheless, dragon fire comes
out of water and dragon water is produced from fire, even though it
is not known why but because there is this manifest evidence, it
becomes believable. Already you believe that the realm of humanity
contains another eight realms, then why are you not able to include
the realm of the Buddha? Gyo and Shun as holy men were impartial to
all people, this is a part of the Buddha realm in that of humanity.
What the Bodhisattva Fukyo saw in mankind was the person of the
Buddha, Prince Sitta became the person of the Buddha out of the
realm of humanity, surely this manifest evidence should make you
believe.

The question is asked from here on keep this strictly to yourself:
Shakyamuni, Lord of the Teaching, was the Buddha who cut off the
three delusions and is lord of the abodes of all the existential
realms of the ten directions as well as being lord and prince of all
the bodhisattvas, people of the two vehicles, devas and mankind.
Whenever he went about there was Bonten on the left and Taishaku in
attendance on the right; monks, nuns. laymen and laywomen as well as
the eight kinds of man-like non-humans followed behind and the Vajra
holders led the way in front. Through the preaching of the Dharma
store of eighty thousand teachings he made all attain to
emancipation. How could a Buddha such as this dwell in the
individual minds of common mortals such as we? Again, if we are to
discuss the meaning of the former teachings and those of the
temporary gateway then the Lord of the Teaching Shakyamuni became
correctly awakened for the first time in his historical lifetime.
But when we look into his causal practices either he was Prince
Nose, the Bodhisattva Judo, King Shibi or Prince Satta. It was
during this period of either three asogi kalpas, a hundred kalpas or
for kalpas that are liable to exceed the grains of dust or for the
incalculable asogi kalpas or from the time when he first resolved to
attain to the bodhi mind or even three thousand kalpas of grains of
dust. He made offerings to seventy thousand, five thousand, six
thousand or seven thousand Buddhas and with the completion of the
practices of accumulated kalpas he has now become Lord of the
Teaching Shakyamuni. Do you mean to say that the individual minds of
all of us are endowed with the meritorious virtue of a bodhisattva
realm whose casual position is all those practices? If we discuss
the effective position then the Lord of the Teaching Shakyamuni is
the Buddha who became correctly awakened for the first time in his
historical life. Over a period of forty years he displayed and
revealed the ennobled bodies of the four teachings and through the
articulate expounding of the former teachings, the temporary gateway
and the Nirvana Sutra he was able to benefit all sentient beings.
When it comes to the periods of the Flower Garland Sutra Kegon and
the teachings of the three receptacles zokyo we have the Birushana
on the dais of the ten directions; in the Agon Sutras the Buddha cut
the knots of misleading views and thought through the thirty four
states of mind in order to attain to the Path; in the everywhere
equal teachings hodo and the wisdom teachings hannya we have
thousands of Buddhas and in the Dainichi and the Vajra Apex Sutras
Kongocho there are one thousand two hundred or so World Honoured
Ones. Then there are the ennobled bodies of the four terrains of the
Chapter of the Precious Stupa of the temporary gateway and in the
Nirvana Sutra the Buddha is seen as sixteen feet high or
alternatively he reveals himself in either his large or small
manifestations or even as Birushana and even as an embodiment that
is not different from the spaceless void. From the four kinds of
body up to his entering Nirvana at the age of eighty, he leaves his
relics behind for the effective benefit of the correct, formal and
final phases of the Dharma. If you are to have doubts about the
original gateway, Shakyamuni was a Buddha prior to five hundred
kalpas of grains of dust ago and it is likewise with his causal
position. Since then he has emanated his person into the existential
realms of the ten directions and in a lifetime of an articulate
exposition of holy teaching he taught and converted as many sentient
beings as there are grains of dust. If we compare those who were
converted through the original gateway to those who were converted
through the temporary, then it could be likened to a drop of water
in the great sea or a speck of dust to a huge mountain. One
bodhisattva of the original gateway confronted with Monju or Kannon
of the existential realms of the ten directions would not even
compare to that of Taishaku with a monkey. Apart from that are the
people of the two vehicles of the existential realms of the ten
directions who have destroyed delusion and witness the fruition,
Taishaku, the devas of the sun and moon, the Four Deva Kings, the
Four Wheel Turning Deva Kings down to the great flames of the hell
of incessant suffering, are all of them the ten realms of our
instant of thought or the three thousand in our own minds? Even
though this is what the Buddha preached I cannot believe it.

Then we take into consideration that all the sutras of the former
teachings are real facts and true words. The Flower Garland Sutra
says, `Being the final superlative it is free from empty delusion
and without contamination like the spaceless void.’ In the Sutra of
the Benevolent King it says, `When one has exhausted the source of
troublesome worries and terminated at the fundamental nature, there
remains the wisdom of utterness.’ In the Vajra Wisdom Sutra it
says, `There is nothing but immaculately pure goodness.’ In
Awakening of Faith by the Bodhisattva Memyo it says, `In the store
of the Tathagata there is only immaculately pure and meritorious
virtue.’ In Discourse on Cognition Only by the Bodhisattva Tenjin we
have `It is said, when the remaining tainted and inferior tainted
seeds appear in front of you during a samadhi like the Vajra, you
draw upon the chastely immaculate all round and clear original
cognition and since it has no dependent environment everything is
relinquished and cast off for ever.’ If you measure the former
teachings against the Dharma Flower Sutra the former sutras are
without number and the time it took to expound them is so much
longer, since the Buddha has two arguments you should stay with the
former teachings. Memyo was the eleventh successor to the Dharma
store whose advent was foretold by the Buddha. Tenjin was the
teacher of dogma of a thousand volumes and a universal scholar of
the four dependences. The Universal Teacher Tendai was an
inconsequential monk from an obscure border town who did not write a
single treatise, who could believe him? Further more I could even
discard the many former teachings and adhere to the one if there
were a passage in the Dharma Flower Sutra that was understandably
clear and on which one could at least depend. Which place in the
text of the Dharma Flower Sutra is the clear and understandable
textual proof of the mutual possession of the ten realms, the
thousand such qualities and the one instant of thought containing
three thousand existential spaces? Consequently in the Sutra we
have `He cut off the evil in all dharmas.’ Neither Tenjin’s
Discourse on the Dharma Flower nor Bodhisattva Kenne’s Discourse on
the Precious Nature have anything concerning the mutual possession
of the ten realms, not even the great Chinese teachers of dogma of
the southern and northern schools nor even among the later teachers
of the seven temples of Japan, have this concept. It is only Tendai
who has this biased view that was solely passed on in error by
Dengyo. Because this is what the Teacher of the State Shoryo
said, “It is the mistake of Tendai.” The Dharma Teacher Eon
said, “However when Tendai called the lesser vehicle the teaching of
the three receptacles he inadvertently got the names mixed up.”
Ryoko said, “It is only Tendai who has not yet fathomed the meaning
of the Flower Garland”. Tokuichi said, “Aren’t you ashamed Chi you
brat, whose disciple do you think you are with your tongue that is
less than three inches. You slander the teachings of the time that
were expounded with the tongue of the Buddha that covered his face.”
The Universal Master Kobo said, “The scholars of China wrangled with
each other in order to steal the ghee, each one naming it as that of
their own school.” The Dharma gateway of the one instant of thought
containing three thousand is a term that is lacking in the
provisional and the real teaching of the Buddha’s lifetime, none of
the masters of the four dependences refer to this concept and the
scholars of China and Japan do not advocate it. Then how should one
believe it?

Your criticism is indeed most harsh, however it is understandably
clear that what comes out of the sutric texts is the disparity
between the Dharma Flower and all the other sutras. What is not yet
revealed and that which has already been revealed, the demonstration
of the proof by the broad, long tongue of the Buddha, whether the
people of the two vehicles become Buddhas or not, or whether the
Buddha became awakened in his historical lifetime or if he was
awakened in infinity. With regard to the teachers of dogma, the
Universal Teacher Tendai says, “Tenjin and Ryuju inwardly knew the
truth but withheld it so as to properly conform to the times which
were then based upon the temporary doctrines, nevertheless the
teachers of men who followed were biased in their understanding and
the scholars in various ways held on to their personal views which
finally led to stone throwing and abuse. Each clung to his own
particular position and generally contravened the holy Path.” The
Universal Teacher Shoan said, “Even the Indian Universal Discourse
is not of his calibre, so why should we go as far as to trouble
ourselves talking about the scholars of China? This is not boastful
arrogance, the nature of the Dharma is just as it is.” Tenjin,
Ryuju, Memyo and Kinne had inwardly known the truth but withheld it
because the time had not yet arrived and it was right that they did
not propagate it. Among the teachers of men before Tendai some kept
such thinking to themselves whereas others knew nothing of it. But,
of those teachers who came later, some at first refuted this concept
but later compliantly committed themselves to it; others made no use
of it whatsoever. But you have to understand the sutric text; `he
cut off the evil in all dharmas.’ Here the Buddha is referring to a
sutric text that came before the Dharma Flower Sutra. On taking a
closer look at it, in this sutric text he is understandably and
clearly about to discuss the mutual possession of the ten realms
where he says, “By being a sentient being I wish to open their own
Buddha knowing and perception.” Tendai inspired by this sutric
phrase said, “If sentient beings had no Buddha knowing and
perception, then why would he want to discuss their opening? As
indeed you ought to know, sentient beings do have the knowing and
perception of the Buddha inherently.” The Universal Teacher Shoan
said, “If it were assumed that sentient beings did not have the
knowing and perception of the Buddha, then why would he be about to
open their awareness of it? If a poor woman did not have a treasure
store, then why would he not want to reveal it to her?”

But the points that are difficult to understand are these enormous
problems concerning the Lord of the Teaching Shakyamuni that we have
just been talking about. As these problems are an impediment to our
understanding of the Buddha, it says in the Sutra, `Of all the
sutras I have expounded, am expounding and will expound, this Dharma
Flower Sutra is the most difficult to believe and understand.’ We
next come to the six difficult and nine easy acts. The Universal
Teacher Tendai said, “Because the temporary and original gateways
contradict the past sutras they are difficult to believe and to
understand. It is a matter that is as hard as facing the tip of a
halberd.” The Universal Teacher Shoan said, “In view of this fact
that the Buddha makes it his overriding concern, how could you take
this to be easy to understand?” The Universal Teacher Dengyo
said, “This Dharma Flower Sutra is by far the most difficult to
believe and difficult to understand because it is according to the
Buddha’s own awakened mind.” From the one thousand eight hundred or
so years since the Buddha’s demise into Nirvana, throughout the
three countries there were only three people who were awakened to,
and perceived this correct Dharma; they were Shakyamuni of India,
the Universal Teacher Tendai of China and Dengyo of Japan, these
three are the holy men of the Buddhist scriptures. The question is
asked: what of Ryuju and Tenjin? The answer is given: these holy men
knew it but out of unselfishness they did not talk about it. Either
they expounded a portion of the temporary gateway but said nothing
of the original gateway or the contemplation of the mind. Perhaps
the propensity of the hearers was right but the time was not, or it
could be that neither their propensity nor the time was appropriate.
After Tendai and Dengyo many, many people understood it through
applying the wisdom of these two sages. Among these were Kasho of
the Three Treatises School Sanron and the hundred or so persons from
the three southern and seven northern schools of China, Hozo and
Shoryo of the Flower Garland School Kegon, Genzo Tripitaka and the
Universal Teacher Jien of the Appearance of the Dharma School Hosso,
Zenmui Tripitaka, Kongochi Tripitaka and Fuku Tripitaka of the True
Word School Shingon and Dosen of the Discipline School Risshu. At
first they were in opposition to the concept of the one instant of
thought containing three thousand existential spaces but later they
wholeheartedly and obediently committed themselves to this teaching.

Now, in order to restrain your harsh criticism, the Sutra of
Incalculable Significance says, `Let us imagine that the king of the
realm and his queen had just had a prince born to them and that he
is only one day, two days or seven days old or that he is one month,
two months or seven months old or one year, two years or seven years
old, even though he is not able to administer the affairs of state,
already he is honoured and respected by the ministers and the
people, the children of all the great sovereigns who are his
companions. The king and queen attentively and with great love show
him kindness and always talk to him gently. What is the reason for
this? It is because of his being a little child. Good men, those who
hold to this sutra are just like this child. The king of the realm
is all the Buddhas and this Sutra is the queen who in union gave
birth to the bodhisattva prince. Let us suppose that this
bodhisattva hears of this Sutra and then he reads and recites the
one phrase and the one metric hymn, then reads and recites all the
Sutra once, twice, ten times, a hundred times, a thousand times, ten
thousand times or shall we assume he reads it a billion times the
number of grains of sand in the Ganges or incalculable and
numberless times and yet even though he is unable to realise the
ultimate true principle,’ The text continues until, `…he will
already be held in esteem and honoured by all the monks, nuns,
laymen, laywomen, the eight categories of the man-like, non-human
beings and all the great bodhisattvas will keep him company.’ The
text continues until, `…he will always be protected and borne in
mind by all the Buddhas and they will earnestly shelter him with
their care and love, because he is a neophyte who is learning.’ In
the Fugen Sutra it says, `This Sutric Canon of the universal vehicle
is the treasure store of all the Buddhas and is the eyes of all the
Buddhas of the ten directions of the past, present and future,’ The
text continues until, `…and is the seed from whence all the
Tathagatas of the past, present and future come into being.’ The
text continues until, `…through your practise of the universal
vehicle your Buddha seeds will not expire.’ Also it says, `…this
everywhere equal sutra is the eyes of all the Buddhas, it is through
this cause that all the Buddhas attain to the five kinds of vision.
The three kinds of body of the Buddha come into being out of the
everywhere equal teaching, it is this token of proof mudra of the
universal Dharma that is substantiated in the sea of Nirvana, such
an ocean as this is able to engender the immaculately pure three
bodies of the Buddha; these three kinds of body are the fields of
happiness of mankind and the devas.’ Now we should think about the
lifetime of the Tathagata Shakyamuni, we have the exoteric and the
esoteric, the two teachings of the universal and the lesser as well
as the dependent sutras of all the schools such as the Flower
Garland Kegon and the True Words Shingon. Then taking all this into
further consideration, either the Buddha Birushana on the lotus
throne with the petals pointing in the ten directions, the cloud of
all the assembled Buddha Tathagatas gathered together from all over
the universe, the apparition of the thousand Buddhas whose
defilements are fused into nothingness of the Wisdom Sutra and the
one thousand two hundred honoured ones of the Dainichi and Vajra
Apex Sutras, albeit all these sutras articulately expound the causes
and fruition that are close at hand but do not reveal the cause and
fruition in infinity, even though the Buddha talks about prompt,
swift and sudden attainment; his realisation in the immeasurability
of the three or five thousand kalpas of grains of dust is missing
and all the indications as to the beginning and end of his
converting and guidance are visibly lacking. On the one hand the
Flower Garland Sutra or the Dainichi Sutra would, of the four
teachings, appear to be similar to the particular teaching bekkyo or
the all inclusive teaching enkyo but, on the other hand, if you
think it over they are comparable to the everywhere equal hodo or
the receptacle teachings zokyo without approaching comparison to
those of the particular or the all inclusive. As the fundamentally
existing three causes for Buddhahood are absent in these sutras,
then how should we determine what the Buddha seeds are? However, the
day when the translators of the new translations returned to China
they saw and heard about the one instant of thought containing three
thousand existential spaces of Tendai and added it to the sutras
that they had brought back with them or they pretended it was
because they had received and committed this teaching to memory in
India. Some of the scholars of Tendai were delighted that these
teachings were the same as their own school or they venerated the
doctrines that had come from far away and showed contempt for those
close at hand or they discarded the older teachings and embraced the
new as an outcome of wicked and stupid thinking. However it may be,
if the point to which we refer did not have the Buddha seed of the
one instant of thought containing three thousand existential spaces,
then sentient beings becoming Buddhas and both wooden and painted
images as fundamental objects of veneration would just be words
without substance.

I have not yet heard your perceptive understanding with regard to my
great difficulties concerning the one instant of thought containing
three thousand existential spaces. The answer is given: in the Sutra
of Incalculable Significance it says, `Even though you have not
attained to the six practices that ferry one beyond the sea of
mortality to the shore of Nirvana, the benefit of all six will
surely be in front of you.’ In the Dharma Flower Sutra it
says, `..wishing to hear the Path to complete fulfilment.’ In the
Nirvana Sutra it says, `…sat is the name for complete fulfilment.’
The Bodhisattva Ryuju says, “Sat is six.” In Annotations on the
Profound Significance of the Four Theses of the Universal Vehicle on
the Wisdom that is Unqualified and Unobtainable by being Dependent
on its own Relativity it says, `When sat is made clear it means six
and in the Dharma of India six has the implication of complete
fulfilment.’ In the commentary referred to as Auspicious Treasury it
says, `In translation sat becomes `complete fulfilment’.’ The
Universal Teacher Tendai said, “sat is a Sanskrit word which is
translated here as `wonderful’.” Were I to add any perceptive
explanation it would be sullying the original texts; in all events
the two dharmas of causal practices and culminating virtue of
Shakyamuni were completely fulfilled through the five ideograms for
Myoho renge kyo, the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Utterness of
the Dharma. Then, should we receive and commit to memory these five
ideograms we would naturally inherit the culminating virtue of those
causal practices. When the four great hearers of the voce
apprehended this they said, “We inadvertently acquired this peerless
cluster of jewels without even looking for them.” This is the realm
of the hearers of the voice in our own minds. `Equal to myself
without any difference whatsoever, just as that which I vowed in
ancient times has already been entirely fulfilled, all sentient
beings through their conversion will be led onto the Buddha Path.’
The utterly awakened Shakyamuni is our flesh and blood, then should
not his causal practices be the marrow of our bones? In the Chapter
on the Precious Stupa it says, `Those people who protect the Dharma
Flower Sutra are precisely those who make offerings to Taho and
myself.’ The text continues until, `Moreover they make offerings to
the radiant brightness that majestically sublimates all the
existential realms of all the Buddha emanations that are present.’
Shakyamuni, Taho and all the Buddhas of the ten directions are the
Buddha realm within us and by inheriting and following this footpath
we will receive and attain to their meritorious virtue. This is
illustrated by, `If you listen to this sutra for only a moment you
will realise the ultimate Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi, the universal
and correct awakening.’ In the Chapter on the Life Span it
says, `However, since I really became a Buddha it is an
incalculable, boundless, hundred, thousand, ten thousand, hundred
thousand, nayuta kalpas ago.’ The Shakyamuni in our individual minds
is the archaic Buddha without a beginning who manifested his three
bodies prior to five hundred kalpas of grains of dust ago. In the
Sutra it says, `The allotted life span of when I originally attained
to the bodhisattva path has yet to be exhausted, it will be again
twice that number.’ This is the bodhisattva realm in our individual
minds. The countless numbers of Bodhisattvas who surged up from the
earth are the retinue of the Shakyamuni in our minds. Just as Taiko
and Tan the Duke of Shu were ministers of King Bu of Shu and later
were part of the court of the infant King Sei, or like the great
minister Takenouchi who was the supporting pillar of the Empress
Jingu and afterwards became a minister of the Crown Prince Nintoku.
Jogyo, Muhengyo Jyogyo and Anryugyo are the bodhisattvas of our
individual minds. The Universal Teacher Myoraku said, “Really you
should know that the body and its terrain is the one instant of
thought containing three thousand existential spaces because when
one attains to the Path this fundamental principle being
substantiated in the one body and its one instant of thought
ubiquitously permeates through the realms of the dharmas.”

During the fifty or so years which began at the site of attainment
to the Path of Nirvana and the existential realm of the Lotus Flower
Store of the Flower Garden Sutra Kegon until his demise in the Grove
of the Sala Trees, Shakyamuni taught that the Three Esoteric and
Majestically Sublime Terrains and the three transformations of
abodes and terrains are all manifestations of a transitory nature of
expedient means, of real requital, of silence and enlightenment and
the Terrains of Peaceful Nourishment, Immaculate Lapis Lazuli and
the Majestically Sublime as the coming into being, the duration, the
decline and the disappearance of the kalpas into nothingness. When
the Lord of the Teaching who was able to make manifest the various
emanations of the Buddha entered into Nirvana, all those Buddhas who
were his emanations passed into extinction and naturally it was also
the same with their respective terrains.

The world in which we live at present is the time of the Chapter on
the Life Span of the original gateway and is free from the three
calamities that come about with the collapse of a kalpa, it is an
immaculate terrain that dwells in eternity. In times gone by the
Buddha has never ceased to be, nor does he come into being in the
future and those who are converted by him are of the same substance.
This is the full endowment of the three thousand existential spaces
in the one instant of thought in our individual minds or the three
kinds of existential space. The reality of this had not yet been
discussed in the fourteen chapters of the temporary gateway because
even within the bounds of the Dharma Flower Sutra the propensity of
the hearers and the time had not yet matured.

The Buddha did not even entrust the five ideograms for Nam myoho
renge kyo [the consecration and founding of one’s life on the Sutra
of the Lotus Flower of the Utterness of the Dharma] to the two
Bodhisattvas Monju and Yakuo, let alone anyone else but he did
entrust it during his preaching of the eight vital chapters to the
countless numbers of Bodhisattvas who surged up from the earth at
his summons. As to the real appearance of that Fundamental Object of
Veneration, the original teacher is seated in the Precious Stupa in
the relativity above the world in which we live and on the left and
right of the Myoho renge kyo there is Shakyamuni Buddha and Taho
Buddha flanked by the four Bodhisattvas led by Jogyo. Monju, Miroku
and the others, being a part of the following of the four
Bodhisattvas, are placed on seats nearby, all the bodhisattvas great
and small from other regions who were converted by the temporary
teachings are placed upon the ground like the common populace
looking up to court officials and executives of state. All the
Buddhas of the ten directions are also on the ground so as to
express the idea of temporary Buddhas on temporary terrains. Such an
Object of Veneration did not exist during the first fifty years of
when the Buddha was in the world, its confines are only the final
eight years of the eight vital chapters. During the two thousand
years of the correct and formal phases of the Dharma the Shakyamuni
of the lesser vehicle had Kasho and Anan in attendance on either
side. The Shakyamuni of the provisional universal vehicle in the
Nirvana Sutra and the temporary gateway of the Dharma Flower Sutra
was flanked on either side by Monju and Fugen. Even though there
were sculptures and paintings of these Buddhas throughout the
correct and formal phase of the Dharma, the Buddha of the Chapter on
the Life Span had not yet been portrayed. Now we have entered the
final phase of the Dharma should we not begin to reveal the
representation of this Buddha?

A question is posed: in the course of the two thousand years of the
correct and formal phases of the Dharma the bodhisattvas of the four
dependences, as well as the teachers of men set up images and built
temples for the various other Buddhas and of the Shakyamuni of the
lesser vehicle, the provisional universal vehicle, the former
teachings and the temporary gateway, yet there is no instance of the
Fundamental Object of Veneration of the Chapter on the Life Span of
the original gateway and the four great Bodhisattvas being venerated
and honoured by the rulers and their ministers in either India,
China or Japan. I can gather most of what you say but because it has
never been heard by former generations my eyes and ears are taken
aback and my mind and thoughts bewildered. Please explain this once
more, I would like to hear it in detail.

The answer is given: the eight fascicles and twenty-eight chapters
of the Dharma Flower Sutra really begin with the four flavours and
end all the sutras of a lifetime with the Nirvana Sutra, when all
these are put together they amount to only one sutra. The period
that starts at the site of the attainment to the Path of silence and
extinction and ends at the Wisdom Sutras hannyakyo is the
introduction, the ten fascicles that make up the Sutra of
Incalculable Significance, the Dharma Flower Sutra and the Fugen
Sutra are the essential doctrine and the Nirvana Sutra is the
transmission.

Within the ten fascicles that make up the essential doctrine there
is also an introduction, an essential doctrine and a transmission.
The Sutra of Incalculable Significance and the Introductory Chapter
are the introduction. The fifteen and a half chapters from the
Chapter on Expedient Means to the nineteenth line of the metric hymn
in the Chapter on the Discrimination of the Meritorious Virtue is
the essential doctrine. The eleven and a half chapters and the one
fascicle from the four ways of believing for the present time of the
Chapter on the Discrimination of the Meritorious virtue to the Fugen
Sutra is the section to be circulated abroad.

Moreover within the ten fascicles of the Dharma Flower Sutra there
are again two sutras each one has its own introduction, essential
doctrine and a section to be circulated abroad. The Sutra of
Incalculable Significance and the Introductory Chapter of the Dharma
Flower Sutra are the introduction, the eight chapters from the
Chapter on Expedient Means to the Chapter on the Prophecies are the
essential doctrine and the five chapters from the Chapter on the
Teacher of the Dharma to the Chapter on the Practices of Peace and
Joy make up the section that is to be circulated abroad. When we
come to talk about the lord of these teachings then it was the
Buddha who, correctly awakened for the first time in his historical
lifetime whose correct Dharma was difficult to believe and difficult
to understand because it was expounded according to his own awakened
mind, was able to reach beyond the past, present and future through
expounding the previously non-existent but now existing hundred
realms and a thousand such qualities. If we look into the affinities
that bound this Buddha with his disciples in the past, then it was
when he was the sixteenth son of Daitsu that he sowed the seeds of
the Buddha fulfilment in their lives. On proceeding further it was
through the concomitant affinities of the four flavours of the
Flower Garden Sutra that brought about the awakening and perception
of the seed planted by Daitsu. This was not the fundamental
intention of the Buddha but only to clear away part of the poison.
Ordinary people and those of the two vehicles through their affinity
with the first four flavours were gradually able to approach the
Dharma Flower and discover the seeds that were sown and the
propensity to free themselves from the provisional and discover the
real. Moreover when the Buddha was in the world, the eight vital
chapters or the one phrase or the metric hymn that were heard for
the first time by men and devas became the seeds of their Buddhahood
which either ripened or became the seeds of harvest. Some were
liberated when they came to the Fugen and Nirvana Sutras, whereas
others during the correct, formal and final phases of the Dharma let
the lesser and provisional teachers become the affinity whereby they
were able to enter into the Dharma Flower Sutra in the same way as
the people of the first four flavours discovered the seeds during
the lifetime of the Buddha.

Again, the fourteen chapters of the original gateway have the
introduction, the essential doctrine and the section to be
circulated abroad of a single sutra. The first half of the Chapter
on Surging Up is the part that is the introduction, the half-chapter
before the Chapter on the Life Span and the half-chapter that
follows it is the essential doctrine, the remaining chapters are the
section that is to be circulated abroad. When we come to discuss the
lord of these teachings it is not the Shakyamuni who became
correctly awakened for the first time in his historical lifetime;
the Dharma gateways that he expounded contrast with the temporary
gateways as the earth is different from the sky. In addition to the
ten realms and the primordial distance he made the existential
spaces of abode and terrain apparent and almost gave the one instant
of thought containing three thousand existential spaces a covering
just as the stem encloses the pith of the bamboo. Furthermore the
temporary gateway as well as the three discourses of the first four
flavours, the sutra of the Incalculable Significance and the Nirvana
Sutra were all preached according to the minds of others and
therefore easy to believe and easy to understand but apart from
these three discourses the original gateway is difficult to believe
and difficult to understand because it is according to the awakened
mind of the Buddha.

In the original gateway there is also an introduction, an essential
doctrine and a section to be circulated abroad. From the Dharma
Flower Sutra of the Buddha Daitsu of the past to the Flower Garland
Sutra of the present time including the fourteen chapters of the
original gateway and the Nirvana Sutra as well as all the sutras of
the fifty or so years of a lifetimes teaching with all the sutras of
all the Buddhas of the past, present and future of the ten
directions which are as countless as the grains of dust, comprise
the introduction of the Chapter on the Life Span. Apart from the one
chapter and the two half-chapters the remainder can be referred to
as the teachings of the lesser vehicle, heretical teachings,
teachings that have not yet attained to the Path or teachings that
conceal the real aspect. If we are to discuss the natural
inclination of those who follow these teachings, then they are
heavily sullied with little virtue, immaturity and feel like
unwanted orphans or the birds and beasts who cannot appreciate the
love of their parents. Besides being the former teachings and the
all inclusive teachings of the temporary gateway those teachings do
not even possess the cause for becoming a Buddha let alone the
Dainichi Sutra and all those sutras of the lesser vehicle. Of even
less value are the teachings of the teachers of men and the teachers
of dogma of the seven schools of the Flower Garland Kegon and the
True Words Shingon. Putting it strongly, the spirit of these
teachings is no different from the teachings of the three
receptacles, the interrelated teachings or the particular teaching
and are certainly no better than the interrelated or receptacle
teachings. For instance, even though these Dharmas are said to be
extremely profound they have not yet discussed the sowing, ripening
and harvesting of the Buddha seed; instead they propose that the
body be reduced to ashes and that the mind and intellect be
annihilated as in the lesser vehicle, but there is no suggestion of
when the Buddha began and ended his teaching and guidance. The
simile would be, should such a person as a queen be made pregnant by
an animal seed the offspring would be even inferior to an
untouchable. For the time being we will put this aside.

On taking a first glance at eight chapters of the essential doctrine
of the fourteen chapters of the temporary gateway during the
lifetime of Shakyamuni, the people of the two vehicles are in the
forefront and the bodhisattvas and common mortals set to one side:
but on thinking it over a second time it is the common mortal who
comes to the fore during the correct, formal and final phases of the
Dharma. In these three periods of the correct, formal and final
phases of the Dharma it is the beginning of the final phase that
becomes the correct phase. The question is asked: what evidence have
you for this? The answer is given: in the Chapter on the Teacher of
the Dharma it says: `…nevertheless with this sutra at present the
Tathagata is much begrudged and envied, so how will it be after his
passing over to Nirvana?’ In the Chapter on the Precious Stupa it
says: `In order that the Dharma be protracted unendingly…’ the text
continues until, `…the Buddha emanations who are here must be aware
that this is his intention.’ You should look at the Chapter on
Exhorting to Hold and the Chapter on Peace and Joy. This is indeed
what the provisional gateway is about.

Now we come to consider the original gateway which was solely
destined for the people of the correct propensities of the beginning
of the final phase of the Dharma. That is to say if we first take a
look at the period then the seeds sown are those of the primordial
sowing which, nurtured by Daitsu and afterwards through the first
four flavours and the temporary gateway where they ripened, on
coming to the original gateway were brought to the attainment of
both the Overall Awakening and the Utter Awakening. On taking a
second look, the original gateway is quite unlike the temporary, the
introduction, the essential doctrine as well as the section to be
circulated abroad of the original gateway all refer to the beginning
of the final phase of the Dharma. The original gateway of when the
Buddha was in the world and that of the beginning of the final phase
of the Dharma are a pure circle, however the former is the Buddha
teaching of the harvest but this is the Buddha teaching of the
sowing. The former doctrine is the one chapter and the two half-
chapters but this is the teaching of the five ideograms of the theme
and title only.

The question is asked: what proof do you have for this? The answer
is given: in the Chapter on Surging Up it says, `At the time all the
bodhisattva great beings who had come from other abodes and terrains
and whose number exceeded eight times the grains of sand of the
Ganges stood up in the great assembly, put the palms of their hands
together and made obeisance. Then they said to the Buddha: “World
Honoured One, when after the passing of the Buddha into Nirvana we
are to be in the existential realm that has to be endured, if you
will allow us to guard and to hold onto, to read and to recite, to
copy out and make offerings to this sutric canon with zealous and
unfailing progress, then surely we will broadly expound it
throughout this terrain.” Then the Buddha said to the assembly of
bodhisattva great beings: “Desist! Good men, there is no need for
you to guard and hold to this sutra.” The sutric content of the
preceding five chapters that follow the Chapter on the Teacher of
the Dharma are as contradictory as fire and water. At the end of the
Chapter on the Precious Stupa it says, `With a great voice the
Buddha said to the monks, nuns, laymen and laywomen everywhere: is
there anyone who is able to broadly propagate the Sutra of the
Flower of the Utterness of the Dharma throughout the abode and
terrain that we live in?’ There is the instance of when the lord of
the teaching, being but one single Buddha, encouragingly raised this
question, the great bodhisattvas such as Yakuo, the devas Bonten and
Taishaku, the devas of the sun and moon and the Four Deva Kings took
this to be a matter of gravity, whereupon the Buddha Taho and the
Buddhas of the ten directions who, as invited guests, provoked their
conviction further. All the bodhisattvas on hearing this generous
collaboration all made the vow, `We will not begrudge our lives’,
this is because they wholeheartedly wished to comply with the
Buddha’s will. Nevertheless, within the space of an instant, he
contradicts himself by forbidding the crowd of bodhisattvas, whose
count exceeded eight times the number of grains of sand of the
Ganges, from propagating the Sutra. Going forwards and backwards
like this decidedly goes beyond ordinary understanding. The
Universal Teacher Tendai the Wise gave us to understand the six
explanations of three previous reasons as to why the Buddha
prohibited the great bodhisattvas from propagating the Sutra
throughout the world in which we live and three subsequent reasons
for his summoning the Bodhisattvas who surge up from the earth. What
is implied is that the great bodhisattvas who came from other
directions and those who were converted by the temporary teachings
were not qualified to have my substantiation of the Chapter on the
Life Span bestowed upon them. They were forbidden because of evil
propensities in the Dharma slandering abodes at the beginning of the
final era. Then he summoned the great bodhisattvas of the thousand
realms who surged up from the earth in order to confer upon the
sentient beings of the world of mankind the five ideograms for Myoho
renge kyo which are the essence of the Chapter on the Life Span.
Moreover the great assembly of bodhisattvas who were converted
through the temporary teachings were not the disciples of Shakyamuni
when he first resolved to attain to a mind of enlightenment. The
Universal Teacher Tendai said, “These are my disciples who are
destined to propagate my Dharma.” Myoraku said, “The sons who spread
abroad the Dharma of the father are a benefit to the world,” In
Supplementary Adjustments and Annotations of the Textual
Explanations it says that `…since this is the Dharma of the
primordial attainment it was entrusted to the people of that
attainment.’

In the Sutra it says that when the Bodhisattva Miroku wished to
clear his doubts he remarked, “Even though we believe that what the
Buddha says is correct, the words that he utters are never empty
delusions and his wisdom is completely pervasive and penetrating.
Nevertheless, after the Buddha’s passing over to Nirvana,
bodhisattvas who are newly resolved to attain to enlightenment may
not accept with faith that the Bodhisattvas who surged up from the
earth are the Buddha’s original disciples and that will give rise to
the cause and affinities of the sinful karma of negating the Dharma.
It is only natural World Honoured One that we ask you to explain so
as to take away our doubts so that all good men who in generations
yet to come will not be sceptical when they hear of this matter.”
The meaning of this is text that Miroku implored the Buddha to
expound the Dharma gateway of the life span for those who are to
come after his passing over to Nirvana.

It says in the Chapter on the Life Span, `Some lost their original
minds and others did not.’ The text continues until, `…those who did
not lose their minds saw that this medicine was good both in looks
and flavour, whereupon they took it and were completely cured and
relieved of their sickness.’ All the bodhisattvas, people of the two
vehicles and devas whose Buddha seeds were planted in the primordial
infinity were later nurtured through the binding affinities with
Daitsu and then through the four flavours and the temporary gateway
where they attained to the way when they heard the original gateway.
In the Sutra it says, `Those who had lost their minds were filled
with joy when they saw that their father had arrived and they
earnestly begged him to cure their sickness even though they had
been given the medicine but they dare not take it because the spirit
of the poison had penetrated deeply and, on account of having lost
their original minds, they found this attractive and tasty physic
unpalatable.’ The text continues until, `I really must contrive an
expedient means in order to make them take this medicine.’ The text
further continues until, `I will now place this good and estimable
medicine here and you must take it and make use of it without
worrying that it might not cure you. After giving these instructions
h<br/><br/>(Message over 64 KB, truncated)
Group: egodeath Message: 1514 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 28/03/2003
Subject: Re: Bennett/Ruck’s cannabis Christ in Door Xn magazine
>Cannabis, strong-drink mixtures, mandrake, and mushrooms all are included in
my book and article.
>–Chris Bennett

Some of the proof of this is shown below.
______________________

http://forbiddenfruitpublishing.com/sexdrugs/intro.html – excerpts:

Next only to sex, do drugs, as in psychoactive substances, play a pivotal role
in the development of religion, and the Bible is here no exception. The
importance of drugs in religion, like that of sexuality, is often overlooked
by researchers who have been imprinted with our Christian influenced societies
innate prejudice against these substances. Moreover, without personal
experience of the power of psychoactive plants, many researchers have failed
to perceive the pivotal role that such plants and preparations have played in
religious thought the world over. “All religions in which mysticism and
contact with the supernatural play an important part, attribute a sacred
character to an intoxicating drink or other intoxicant”(Danielou 1992). The
Biblical references to wine, which had become the blood of the savior by the
Christian period, clearly falls into this category. The use of wine in the
ancient world was “unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical
faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry
criticisms of the sober hour”(James 1929). Even more interestingly, as we
shall amply demonstrate on these pages, was the use of other intoxicants
amongst the Old Testament Israelites.

Despite the early marriage between shamanism and psycho-active plants that
inspired the development of whole religions, naturally occurring botanicals
like the psilocybin mushroom, Indian hemp, peyote cactus and similar
substances have been condemned as devil’s potions and drugs by most religious
groups of our modern era. Historically, this situation is an anomaly, not the
norm. Prior to the Common Era and throughout the ancient world these magical
plants had been seen as sacraments and constituted a very important part of
religious worship. In the 1930’s respected scholar W.E. Budge commented that,
“Many of the ancient herbalists knew that the juices of certain plants
possessed properties which produced extraordinary effects when introduced into
the human body, and that some might be used as aphrodisiacs, and others as
narcotics, and others as stimulants. And the magicians when they were
acquainted with them naturally used them in lotions and philters to produce
both good and evil effects”(Budge 1930). Some modern scholars have taken this
line of thought further, pointing out that the ancients considered these
substances to be the sacred food of the Gods, and a means of communicating
with the divine. (Schultes and Hoffman 1979; Mckenna 1992; Ott 1993, etc.).

Still other scholars suggest that humanities drive to alter their
consciousness is as innate as the drives to fulfill sexual needs and hunger.
… well-known health and drug researcher Dr. Andrew Weil commented, “There is
not a shred of hope from history or from cross-cultural studies to suggest
that human beings can live without psychoactive substances”. (A view that is
discussed more fully in Ronald K. Siegel’s Intoxication: Life in Pursuit of
Artificial Paradise.) [“Artificial”? Jonathan Ott has written a whole book
demonstrating how misleading and incorrect that way of thinking is; they are
the venerable, classic *natural* paradises. This perfectly demonstrates how
today’s entheogenists shoot themselves in the foot and are their own worst
enemies, inadvertantly entrenching further the dominant paradigm even as they
strive to challenge it. -mh]

Etymologist and religious historian John M. Allegro [you see him swinging by
the neck in the background, serving to quite effectively officially discredit
the entheogen theory of religion by his poor grasp of what entheogenic
mysticism is about and his dismissive, disparaging attitude toward the very
subject he considered to be a main advocate of -mh] pointed out that our
ancestors believed these plants were living gateways to other realms, and
thought of them as angels. … The ancients interpreted the experiences they
received from these plant-angels as divine revelations, in much the same way
that shamans have done around the world before recorded history, and are still
doing in South America, Africa, Asia and even North America today.

Although it is little known to most modern readers, marijuana and other
entheogens played a very important role in ancient Hebrew culture and
originally appeared throughout the books that make up the Bible’s Old
Testament. The Bible openly discusses the use of mandrake, which is
psychoactive, along with intoxication by wine and strong drink so the Hebrews
were more than familiar with altering their consciousness. What will be
surprising to most modern readers, is the frequent use of cannabis-sativa, by
both the Hebrew Priests and Kings. Indicating, as anthropologist Vera Rubin
noted, that cannabis “appears in the Old Testament because of the ritual and
sacred aspect of it” (Rubin 1978).

______________________

In addition to watching out for the challenges that the mainstream puts out
against the entheogen theory of religion, we also need to watch out for the
ways in which the insiders, the entheogen scholar community, harms its own
cause and unnecessarily unconsciously limits its own effectiveness by
accepting far too much of the dominant paradigm.

These scholars can exclaim about my criticisms just as G.A. Wells said about
Earl Doherty’s criticism of his work: “I am used to being criticized, but not
for being too conservative!”

G.A. Wells wrote books asserting that Jesus kind of basically pretty much
didn’t exist, not in any way we usually think — whereas Doherty came along
and said “enough with the minor corrective epicycles: out with it, admit it,
give us a *real* paradigm shift: Jesus didn’t exist, period. Honestly and
really change your thinking, and quit just shuffling the same old bits around
with minor changes.”

Then I come along criticizing Doherty as being nothing but a paradigm
destroyer, not a paradigm changer, as he recognizes no profundity and
relevance for the Christian myth system, and has no more insight than any
run-of-the-mill Christian-origins scholar that the myth refers to specific
dynamics experienced and understood during intense entheogenic mystic
experiencing.


I read much of Chris Bennett’s book Sex, Drugs, Violence and the Bible, and
quickly read his High Times article.

Just as James Arthur claims to have “clearly” emphasized the great extent to
which entheogens are present in religion, upon closer examination it becomes
clear that Arthur and Bennett end up making the same communication mistake and
unbalanced thinking mistake as Huston Smith: after a 50% careful reading of
Arthur, the reader most likely comes away with the idea that there was a
slight presence of Amanita way back only at the beginning of Christianity.

With Huston Smith, one ends up with a similarly tepid impression, that
entheogens are an also-ran, barely present throughout the eras of the
religions. With Bennett, there is a good reason why the Door Magazine
characterized him just like I do: Bennett puts 99% of his emphasis, so it
seems, on Cannabis, and only in early Christianity. Arthur puts 99% of his
emphasis, so it seems, on Amanita, in several religions, but only way back at
the beginning.

Huston Smith, another “defender” and “promoter” of the presence or legitimacy
of entheogens in religion, also ends up giving the readers an impression that
99% of religious experiencing and mystic tradition has *not* been entheogenic.
If these authors intend to communicate what I am emphasizing, they have
failed.

I don’t think this is a mischaracterization of the background paradigm behind
these books; this accurately describes what is actually communicated in
practice by these books.

If their theory is that all combinations of entheogens have been used during
all eras of all religions — which is the radical extremist alternative I am
tentatively or experimentally proferring — they don’t communicate that.
Bennett *didn’t* have that radical theory in mind when writing the High Times
article or the book. If he had, that would have been reflected in the Door
article.

But no, the Door article exclusively describes Bennett’s proposition that Mr.
Historical Jesus used cannabis and that the laying on of hands was with
cannabis. Not one word about any other entheogen in any religion in any era.

What I am criticizing the entheogenists for, and shaking them to wake them up
about, is that they are shooting themselves in the foot (like drug policy
reformers do in so many ways) by buying in too fully into the dominant mode of
thinking and communicating. The world will never pay attention to the
entheogen theory if it is communicated so timidly, with such an exclusive
emphasis on one plant such that the others are completely overshadowed.

*No way* does the book or article by Bennett effectively communicate a
multi-plant theory — it’s far too exclusively focused on cannabis. It’s
really time to discard that way of thinking that chronically overemphasizes a
single plant, with the others relegated to a footnote. Quit identifying with
a single plant, and move on to the “Integral Studies” spirit like Ott, and
like Dan Russell — *they* have the right, more extreme exphasis, probably Ott
most of all.

Don’t just tack on a bit of use of one plant onto existing, status-quo
thinking about religion, and then add an even lesser footnote to that. Like
Wilber would say, we need an “all era, all plant, all religion” Integral
theory of the role of entheogens in religion.

Amanita is plastered all over Arthur’s works. Cannabis is plastered all over
Bennett’s work. Ergot is plastered all over Dan Merkur’s work. They all
claim that they have promoted the multi-plant theory — they are deluded; they
are utterly failing to convey the ideas, because they are each in love with
one plant only. Ott is different — he consistently promotes awareness of,
and thinks in terms of, the entire pharmacopeia.

Today’s entheogen story doesn’t work, doesn’t fly, doesn’t have an impact;
look at how The Door magazine waved it aside like a gnat — Bennett supposedly
is the defender and representative of plant mysticism in Christianity, but his
approach carries no real weight, because in practice, in real-world
communication, it amounts to a theory of a single plant in a single religion
in a single period — *not* a theory of an entire pharmacopia in all religions
in all eras.

In claiming the latter, Arthur and Bennett and Merkur are deluding themselves
about the scope of their thinking are are claiming credit for more scope than
they have effectively ventured — the broad theory, more on the order of Ott’s
thinking, is just *barely* present in their works and isn’t really
communicated at all, any more than Ken Wilber could claim to have “covered” or
“included” the Hellenistic Mystery Religions in his theory.

My criticism is a matter of balance: it is totally commendable to focus on
establishing the use of one plant in one religion in one era, but eventually
the scholars need to adopt a balanced paradigm that assumes the use of all
plants in all religions in all eras, and these authors have not produced yet
such a balanced and ambitious paradigm, which is why we end up with such
effortless dismissals as the Door article.

Such minimalist theories as have been put forward attempt too little in their
surrounding framework. Everyone should buy and read these books, but make no
mistake, the entheogen theory has barely been hinted at yet, and there is much
work at even the most beginning stage of defining the scope of the entheogen
theory.

Today’s books about the entheogen theory of the origin of religion also need
to cover the ongoing nature of religion and the ever-popular use of all
available entheogens inside and outside all the major religions in all eras.

Entheogen scholars should be more on guard against inadvertantly supporting
the status quo theory which is exactly this: that yes, some deviant groups
have sometimes used drugs in some religions, especially in olden days. How
could today’s entheogen books challenge the status-quo dominant paradigm by
merely falling into it? Their little firecrackers bounce harmlessly off the
temple walls. The status-quo paradigm can eat ten of these scholars for lunch
as an appetizer.

These books and articles so far are utterly failing to communicate, partly
because they unconsciously downplay the very thesis they are trying to put
forward, while taking for granted far more of the conventional views about
religion than the authors realize. If you let the readers retain their
overall paradigm of what religion is about, and only introduce a focus on one
plant, one era, one religion, it’s a no-brainer what the result will be:
effortless dismissal; that is how paradigms work.

These scholars severely overestimate their sweep and scope of ambition, and
severely underestimate how massive a challenging paradigm must be. No one, no
one, understands why it is so important to take on the whole of Christian
theology and tradition and history, and transform the entirety of it into a
fully entheogenic paradigm (and drag along all other religions as well).
Bennett’s book was somewhat influential in my studying the whole of the Bible
canon.

Bennett thinks he’s presented a radical, sweeping alternative paradigm, but it
is no such thing, far overemphasizing cannabis, the earliest origins of a
religion, and the Christian religion only, while unconsciously accepting as an
overall paradigm the status-quo paradigm, which is that a few deviant groups
used one drug in isolated heretical cases long ago.

They don’t really offer an alternative paradigm — just a minor modification
within the dominant paradigm, which is easily brushed off like a bit of few
breadcrumbs off a good Christian’s tablecloth.

One kind of serious threat to a new paradigm is a way of thinking that appears
to be a new paradigm and thinks it is, but really is just a minor ill-received
modification within the same, old, half-baked way of thinking. This is how
paradigm replacement works: the new paradigm must be bigger and more
encompassing than the old, more ambitious, more cogent and concise, more
natural, more everything.

Nothing less than a whole new interpretation of metaphysics, religious myth,
the nature of myth, the ever-popular use of every entheogenic plant in sight
by everyone, stands a chance when battling the fierce dragon of the
established dominant way of thinking. Low-dose theories fail to cause
regeneration of the sinner’s heart.

These psilocybin caps just aren’t cutting it; we need a far stronger drink, a
far more efffective potion, to kill the beast of the dominant way of thinking
about the role of entheogens in religious history. We need to leave this
mellow jazz guitar music played by the Bennett, Arthur, and Merkur brothers,
and hook up a chain of guitar amps overdriving each other.

Everyone should buy and read these books and ask what would result by taking
their postulates as far as possible:

Mushrooms and Mankind: The Impact of Mushrooms on Human Consciousness and
Religion
James Arthur
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1585091510


Merkur’s book Psychedelic Sacrament is very important; entheogen use by
rabbinic mystics is more important than my review implies. This kind of
serious engagement with Western religion is important and entheogenists really
must expand beyond idolizing Buddhist mysticism. Entheogenists need to get
interested in quasi-official Jewish and Christian mysticism; it’s the only
possible way to ever succesfully challenge the dominant way of thinking.

The one-topic revisionist scholars think that they have a new paradigm, and it
may seem like they do, but really, they don’t have anything but the dominant
way of thinking, with a minor revision; just a revision of the current way of
thinking, not really a new way of thinking.

One of my top priorities is to write a better review that explains why this
book is one of the very most important and why every entheogenist should read
it *even if* they imagine that they aren’t interested in “rabbinic
mysticism” — just like most entheogenists imagine that they aren’t interested
in “Christianity”. They’ll never make a difference and challenge the dominant
paradigm until the day they *get* interested.

I really need to write more explaining why the most important thing to do is
to completely take over the entire nature of religion and the entire history
of religion in order to sweep away the completely incorrect dominant, official
way of thinking about religion and especially to exorcise that delusion from
their own habitual character of thinking, and framework of assumptions.

The existing books have made *no impact* on the dominant way of thinking,
because they unthinkingly take too much of the dominant paradigm for granted
as the paradigmatic framework in which they put forth their minor revisions of
a few points. The problem these authors have on their hands, the only real
problem, is how to construct a serious challenger to the dominant way of
thinking.

It’s been proven by now that this will require far more than the puny, feeble
little gnat-like “entheogen theory of the origin of religion”. The time is
ripe for an actual transformation in thinking, rather than the isolated
revision of points that we have become accustomed to under the false and
deceptive banner of “revolutionary paradigm shift”.

The Psychedelic Sacrament: Manna, Meditation, and Mystical Experience
Dan Merkur
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/089281862X

The Mystery of Manna: The Psychedelic Sacrament of the Bible
Dan Merkur
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0892817720


Sex, Drugs, Violence and the Bible
Chris Bennett, Neil McQueen
http://www.google.com/search?q=sex+drugs+violence+bible+bennett
Purchase: http://www.forbiddenfruitpublishing.com/sexdrugs – intro is online.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1550567985

It’s long, like Dan Russell’s book Drug War, but quite readable and makes the
scriptures interesting. If you substitute “entheogens” instead of “cannabis”
when reading and thinking about this book, this book is an essential key for
revealing that the Christian scriptures are inspired throughout. Many of the
sex or ritual sex aspects generally concur with studies like “The Historical
Mary Magdalene” and Allegro’s “The Sacred Mushroom & The Cross”. I’m not
interested in the subject of sex or ritual sex, but like the subject of
astrotheology, ancient religionists were.


Book list: Currently named “Entheogen theory of the origin of religion”.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/103-0184603-88342
66

When Amazon fixes a problem, I will rename this to something like “Entheogen
theory of religion”, “Entheogen basis of religion”, or something else implying
that real religion has always been about entheogen allegory — all plants, all
eras, all religions, all classes.

The very name of the theory I’ve been using has a fatal flaw: it asserts that
entheogens are only present in a disappearingly small moment: the temporal
beginning — very easy to dismiss as an anomaly that proves the rule that
“religions, generally and on the whole, are *not* about drugs, and are about
rejecting drugs”.


— Michael Hoffman
Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 1515 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 28/03/2003
Subject: Heinrich concedes no-HJ explan. Apocrypha, 2-state interp.
I wrote:
>>In contrast, I present this truly sane, wise, and sober interpretation:
Jesus is an entirely mythic representation of the specific metaphysical
experience and conceptual realization which Hellenistic mystery-religion
initiates and Jewish mystics underwent subsequent to ingesting the sacred food
and mixed wine of the ritual meals that were standard and ubiquitous in the
Hellenistic world.


Clark Heinrich conceded that and seems to have forgotten the presumably main
subject of our discussion, the changes in the new edition of Strange Fruit.
His book takes for granted the literal existence of a historical Jesus, which
I maintain hopelessly complicates any explanation of the origin of
Christianity.

Magic Mushrooms in Religion and Alchemy
Clark Heinrich
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0892819979


When ordinary Christians hear the no-historical Jesus proposal, they think
that the main problem with it is that it would be much harder to explain
Christian origins.

Scholars can more quickly recognize that the problem they are inadvertantly
coming across is that the more you study Christian origins, the more
superfluous and redundant is the need for any individual man, Jesus, to *also*
physically enact what the Jewish and Hellenistic thinking of the day had
*already* constructed with or without an actual man to uniquely literally
carry out the mythic ideas that were on everyone’s mind already.

For scholars, the problem is coming to be how to explain the rise of
Christianity as being a natural development in the political and mythical
climate at the same time as Christianity also “came from” the acts of a
presumed historical individual, Jesus; historical Jesus becomes more of a
complicating, problem-introducing extra hypothesis than a solution.

The historical Jesus assumption is like saying that when you push a door, the
door opens because of cause-and-effect *and* because the door spirit causes
the door to open.

As a theorist, it is a huge relief to abandon the historical Jesus
assumption — a far more compact and elegant mode of explanation results,
instead of trying to explain that Christianity was formed *both* by the
political and historical backdrop *and* by the uniquely actualized actions of
the individual man, Jesus, that just happen to exactly enact the mythic
allegorical drama that was present anyway in Jewish and Hellenistic thinking.

Today’s scholarly consensus amounts to a combination of “Jesus is archetypal
allegorical mystic metaphor” *and* “Jesus literally carried out the allegory”.
For scholars, the question now is how is it that Christianity started both
without needing Jesus, *and* involving Jesus? We have a double-explanation,
and then the question is what would have motivated a rational, clear-thinking
Jesus to have bothered *voluntarily* literally acting out the myths of the
day? To pull off some stunt of faking a resurrection?

Why would he do it? He wouldn’t be considered a victorious king in that
scenario which ends up with a regular literal Jesus walking around after
literally escaping the cross. That’s the problem I came across and grappled
with.

Then the spirit showed me that what mattered to *me* if I ever experienced a
crisis needing a vicarious self-will demolisher to finally and violently cross
out his self-will and self-control, was the *idea* of a divine savior and
rescuer; the savior figure was effective for me in my time of tribulation and
judgment by his actions in the mental realm, not by his literal existence, his
literal motives, and his literal actions.

I also assumed at the time the “savior” and “divine rescuer” idea functioned
the same in the other Hellenistic mystery religions with their
dying-and-rising god-man divine redeemer-figures, which scholars hold to be
purely mythical redeemers.

How could it be that the mystery religions experienced divine rescue and
redemption from their purely mythical saviors, while Christian mystic-state
explorers had to have a savior that was also literal in addition to
functioning allegorically in the mind? From this analysis, the literal
historical Jesus became totally superfluous with respect to the mystic’s
experience of being rescued by a divine savior.

In practice, the literalist assumption (the assumption that the origin of
Christianity was strongly focused on and dependent on a single historical
actual individual man) prevents understanding the high allegorical meaning.


I proposed asking Dale Allison why one should accept his historical-Jesus
interpretation of the apocalyptic Jesus instead of my entheogen-allegory
interpretation.

Clark wrote that I have more patience for theology than he does, and
characterizes literalist Christianity scholars as “can’t get the joke”. Chris
Bennett’s book is responsible for some of my patience for theology, such as
taking on the entire Bible as entheogenic scriptures and then later (unlike
Bennett) as mythic-only entheogenic allegory. If Bennett takes on the whole
Bible, working through each book, then I had better reach that bar as well.

I think Bennett omitted the Apocrypha between the testaments, which is a
mistake. The most literalist version of Christianity is Protestantism, and
that literalist, non-spiritual, non-allegorical mindset is supported by
removing the Apocrypha. In Catholic and Orthodox Christianity, there’s a much
stronger flavor of allegory.

That’s one reason why I’m thinking of retracting or qualifying my idea of
“middle-level religion” or “middle-level Christianity”: in some ways, low
religion is closer to the truth than presumably higher, demythicized religion
which removes all the supernatural and ends up with mundane history and
mundane ethics and oridinary-state archetypal Psychology symbolism.

It may be easier to grasp the entheogenic purely allegorical meaning of the
Jesus crew in Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity than Protestant
Christianity, because the icons and mood are already more archetypal and
symbolic than in hyper-literalist Protestantism. My brand of Christianity was
exclusively Protestant, albeit a mix of conservative and New Age
Protestantism.

The Protestant mythic-system is a more brittle puzzle, serving as more of a
challenge but more definitely and catastrophically breakable.

Catholicism can too easily absorb an allegorical theory, whereas Protestantism
tends to be entire demolished or completely transformed upon finding a sound
allegorical interpretation; Protestantism cannot remain literalist and absorb
and co-opt mystic allegory; it necessarily gives up the literalist ghost and
transforms to the distinct 2-level dynamic system it was originally designed
to be.

In the earliest Christianity, you could say that the collective community
understood the 2-level meaning-flipping character of the religion; this is
reflected in the Paul character’s distinction between milk Christianity and
meat Christianity, thinking as a child does and then putting away childish
things for the adult way of thinking. Catholic orthodoxy tends to bend and
absorb and co-opt mystic allegory rather than successfully transforming into
the exclusively higher mode of interpretation.
Group: egodeath Message: 1516 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 29/03/2003
Subject: New in Heinrich’s “Magic Mushrooms in Religion and Alchemy”
Compared to the first edition, “Strange Fruit”, the new edition of the book
has the following.

Large-format paperback, which makes it much more user friendly–larger type,
bigger pictures, new layout throughout.

The whole thing re-edited, syntax improved, typos and British spellings
corrected, five important illustrations that my first publisher lost and
therefore left out, two new color plates, two substitutions with better
plates, new layout of plates with different sizing in some cases.

The new photo of Rama and Hanuman holding opened mushrooms while touching a
Shiva linga with their free hands that is actually a large button-stage
muscaria; with pertinent new text explaining it.

New speculation about the pope’s beanie.


Magic Mushrooms in Religion and Alchemy
Clark Heinrich
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0892819979
Group: egodeath Message: 1517 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 29/03/2003
Subject: Rational Spirituality site
>Michael,
>I have read your site about ego death and found it to be very interesting.
>I have a Suite 101 column on Rational Spirituality and I thought you would
>be interested in checking it out. I have added a link to your site from
>there also.
>
>http://www.suite101.com/welcome.cfm/rational_spirituality
>
>Francois Tremblay
>personal site : http://www.insolitology.com/personal


High on my wish list is to convince Earl Doherty of the profundity of the
Christian myth, now that it is becoming understood in terms of systematic
theory, or science.

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22earl+doherty%22+puzzle
Group: egodeath Message: 1518 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 29/03/2003
Subject: We’re way behind in reading postings
There are 228 postings I haven’t read in the egodeath discussion group. There
are 138 subscribed members (and anyone can publicly read the group). I
haven’t promoted the group or website at all, except by including my domain
name at the bottom of postings in various online forums, and by including my
domain name in my Amazon page. If my work becomes popular, I will fall behind
in reading people’s postings at an even higher rate.

Outlook 2000 doesn’t permit me to sort by Read/Unread status — damn, what a
major feature limitation — otherwise I could print all unread postings and
read them like a book. I will see if Outlook 2003 permits this.

Similarly, I expect that few people are able to, or interested in, keeping up
with my postings, which have about a 90% redundancy factor per posting.

I’m considering a Web log but there are as many drawbacks as advantages. The
worst thing about Yahoo groups is that they aren’t logged by the Google search
engine.

I started gathering all my postings, including prior to the egodeath
discussion group. There are thousands of postings — just gathering them into
folders is a huge project. For example, my Sent mailbox has thousands of
emails from over the years, with guitar amp gear postings mixed with egodeath,
drug policy reform, and other postings.

I want to gather all my postings, organize them and compile them into a
full-featured frameset, but the tools for doing so continue to be inefficient.
It’s a major project and I’m too impatient to get on with the next insight;
I’ve never liked spending time polishing and presenting ideas neatly; I’m
totally a frontier explorer, hungry only for the next discovery.

A problem is that even if I did collect all my writings, it would be such a
huge collection, the size might work against effective communication of the
basics. Also, the high redundancy from one posting to the next is also
somewhat of a problem.

I could really use an assistant, like a graduate student, editing team, or
ghost writer, to organize my writings. I’m doing some writing myself, which
is like ghost writing, for a very busy famous person.
Group: egodeath Message: 1519 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 29/03/2003
Subject: TRIP issue 9 is now shipping
>This is a quick note to let you know that Trip 9, Spring 2003, will be
shipping
within the next few days. If you need to update your address or resubscribe,
now’s the time to do it! We’ve got a great issue featuring DJ Spooky,
Negativland, articles on Psychedelic Activism, and much more. For full details
on the contents of our new issue please visit http://tripzine.com
>James Kent
Group: egodeath Message: 1520 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 29/03/2003
Subject: Repairing the rift among entheogen scholars
James Arthur ought to have tighter editing and more citations, more scholarly
style than in the book Mushrooms & Mankind. Dan Merkur convinced me of the
importance of scholarly discipline. It would be wonderful for Entheos journal
to work with James Arthur to publish a respectable article of his even if his
natural style is popular and undisciplined. I have little patience for
scholarly discipline, but unlike Arthur, I have a high respect for it.

Arthur has an interesting hypothesis that scholars already know the entheogen
theory so there’s no point in playing the charade of scholarly citation. Like
some of my experimental extreme hypotheses, there is some degree of truth in
his assertion, mixed with some untruth.

I have to criticize the many typos in the Mithras article in Entheos journal.
I’m sure the editor is as busy as I am, but typos are very harmful for
scholarly credibility, and are the most abrupt contradiction possible of the
magazine’s stated goal. I have great respect for the work of all entheogen
scholars, specifically including John Allegro, James Arthur, and Chris
Bennett, and I intend to give them as much credit for their contributions and
insights as possible.

There seems to have been a major rift in the entheogen scholar community
pursuant to these two books:

The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross: A Study of the Nature and Origins of
Christianity within the Fertility Cults of the Ancient Near East
John Marco Allegro, 1969?
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0340128755

Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality
R. Gordon Wasson, 1972?
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0156838001

Much of the rift centers around the no-historical Jesus theory. I was
surprised to find that Jack Herer is quite a scholar and considers it very
important to reject the historical Jesus assumption. I was surprised to find
that Jack Herer was even more critical of the book Apples of Apollo than I
was, because of its assumption of a historical Jesus. I am very forgiving of
the way entheogen scholars assume a historical Jesus — what scholars don’t?

I used to unthinkingly make the same assumption myself, as an entheogen
scholar; it’s hardly an outstanding reason to dock points for when reviewing
an entheogen book. But Herer seems to think that the presence of the
historical Jesus assumption fatally undermines the legitimacy of an entheogen
book about myth-religion.

I’ve been more tentative in postulating that literalist thinking about Jesus
practically prevents one from comprehending the profound entheogenic mythic
meaning of the Passion of the Cross. It seems that Herer is more absolute: it
is impossible to have a legitimate entheogen theory or a higher understanding
of entheogenic myth-religion if one assumes there was a historical Jesus.

Now that Clark Heinrich has conceded the entirely mystic-mythic,
ritual-metaphorical, and allegorical nature of the Jesus figure, Chris Bennett
and the Mark Hoffman/Carl Ruck crowd are the only remaining entheogen scholars
to assume or take for granted a historical Jesus. Would it be good for all
entheogen scholars to do away with the historical Jesus assumption? I don’t
know; maybe a range of views and thinking styles helps the entheogen theory
cause more than it impedes it.

Truly, the most critical of the critical thinkers are the no-historical Jesus
scholars. They have to be the clearest of thinkers. In general,
no-historical Jesus scholars immediately concede the high plausibility of the
entire entheogen theory of religion, whereas the less critical thinkers, the
entheogen scholars generally are completely uncritical about the historical
Jesus assumption — I know this mistake first-hand.

Entheogen theorists typically haven’t read books about no-historical Jesus,
and yet they actively adhere to the assumption of a historical Jesus, and
consider themselves to be critical thinkers. After having seen how
upside-down the world’s assumptions are with respect to entheogens, these
would-be critical thinkers dare to venture a strong affirmation of the
historical Jesus assumption.

Upon Heinrich conceding no-historical Jesus, and upon finding that Jack Herer
is (if possible) more intent than I am on dismissing the historical-Jesus
assumption as a harmful impediment to progress in entheogen knowledge, and
upon James Arthur’s dismissal of the historical Jesus assumption, it looks
clear at this point that the future of entheogen scholarship is moving in the
direction I advocate: effectively *replacing* the historical Jesus assumption
by, basically, Allegro’s view — give him credit for being too far ahead of
his time, so far that he has embarrassed us and now we repent — the view that
Jesus, like Dionysus, is none other than the entheogen.

The only flaw with Allegro is his disparaging attitude toward the early
enthenogenic Christians, not his theory *that* they were entheogenists and the
Jesus was none other than Amanita and its experiences and insights. The only
way forward for entheogen theory is to stop distancing itself by disparaging
Allegro, and instead, give him credit for being so far ahead of his time, that
even we would-be critical thinkers, have had to run to catch up with him.

We must criticize and reject Allegro’s bad attitude, while being in awe of his
prescient conclusion that Jesus was none other than the entheogen —
otherwise, our field is broken and dysfunctional, a field based on a sandy
foundation of untruth, leading to darkness as much as light.


I’m not sure of what constructive outcome can be had by entheogen scholars
criticizing and critiquing each other’s contributions. I was extremely
dismayed at the way the book Apples of Apollo insulted and disparaged John
Allegro by kicking him in the footnotes and refusing to include him in the
bibliography — that was truly bad behavior, bad scholarly citizenship and is
the opposite of the constructive criticism that is necessary for entheogen
scholarship to progress.

Constructive criticism can be blurred into destructive criticism. It’s
important to both criticize and praise other co-workers in this scholarly
field, giving them credit and giving them their due. That’s the only way the
field can really progress. I’m highly critical to the point of being or
seeming destructive, but critical, skeptical thinking has produced results in
developing my own thinking or theoretical system.

The effective attitude among entheogen scholars is neither an uncritical
love-fest nor the kind of insulting dismissals like the footnotization of
Allegro or the disparagement of James Arthur’s popularist, anti-scholarly
strategy.

There is some disadvantage of associating Entheos journal with James Arthur
because of his popularism and anti-scholar attitude — but the solution must
be to work together to overcome each other’s weaknesses and improve each
other, which includes a great deal of critical wrangling as well. It is very
stressful, the hard work of both criticizing the limitations of one’s fellow
scholars, while also working to build up each other’s work and contributions,
to maximize the potential of each scholar together.

Is there outright competition between these scholars? I don’t really think
so; not significantly — clearly there is enough territory for many more
scholars in this field; we need to invite and create and encourage even more
scholars to help work in this field. The real problem, the reason for
contention and insults — each controversial scholar is terrified of the
liability of being associated with each other.

Bennett? That marijuana-Jesus kook? No, he’s not my friend, his work sucks,
he’s totally wrong. Arthur? An embarrassment to us serious scholars!
Heinrich? The fool assumes a historical Jesus; he’s a terrible embarrassment
and liability to us clear thinkers!

Each controversial scholar aligns himself with certain other controversial
scholars, and aligns himself against certain other controversial scholars.
Why? Because being associated with another controversial scholar is partly a
boon and partly a harmful liability for a controversial scholar.

Allegro was tarred and feathered for his theory that Jesus is none other than
the Amanita in conjunction with ritual sex — no wonder entheogen scholars
publically disparage him and distance themselves as far as possible from him
and his theories.

Entheogen scholars should not try to distance themselves from Allegro (because
of his no-HJ, and sex hypotheses) or Bennett (for his seeming marijuana-Jesus
fixation) or Arthur (for his attitude against disciplined scholarly
conventions). Instead, the constructive attitude and the way forward is to
praise each scholar for what one takes to be their insight, and to criticize
just those aspects one disagrees with.

My treatment of Ken Wilber is a good model: the hardest thing in the world is
to legitimately critcize Wilber. He’s so right about so many things and has
made huge contributions to Integral Theory and transpersonal theory of
psycho-spiritual development.

I commend him and respectfully cite him, even while I consign to the flames
his pathetic, totally inadequate, muddled and inconsistent attitude toward
Hellenistic mystery-religion: he is practically oblivious to the entheogen
basis of Hellenistic mystery-religion and myth-religion, assumes a historical
Jesus, and has hardly thought about how cosmic determinism fits into the
Hellenistic way of thinking.

Because of these omissions and severe under-treatment of these subjects,
Wilber has an outright *weak* core theory of what ego-transcendence is about.
His theory of everything is as good as it could be, given the limiting factor,
which is his weak core theory of what is *most important* in the mental
transformation that is ego death and rebirth.

I don’t try to publically distance myself from Wilber, like the way an
entheogen scholar fearfully tries to deny any association with other entheogen
scholars. I associate my work with Wilber’s work *selectively*. It’s
dishonest and chicken of the book Apples of Apollo to take some of Allegro’s
insights, footnoting him repeatedly, and then insult Allegro on the whole, in
an effort to publically distance their work from his by shunning him from
inclusion in the bibliography.

The book’s insulting wholesale disparagement of Allegro is inexcusable (even
if strategically understandable), whereas the book’s gullible assumption of a
historical Jesus is fully understandable and excusable. Jack Herer seems to
have been taken aback by both flaws of the book Apples of Apollo: the
wholesale disparagement of and distancing from Allegro, and the gullible
assumption of a historical Jesus.

Entheos journal ought to do penance and prove that it is as constructive as I
wish to be, by publishing a favorable critical article about the whole Allegro
affair and debate, and by working with James Arthur to publish a scholarly
article (with no typos).


— Michael “brushed off effortlessly like a gnat” Hoffman
Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath Message: 1521 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 29/03/2003
Subject: Has entheogen theory been effectively communicated?
What are the outcomes of this experimental train of thought, the criticisms of
entheogen scholars’ backdrop of assumptions?

My criticisms are half-correct. It was entirely incorrect for me to associate
James Arthur with an exagerrated focus and weak framework of an all-plants
perspective: I should have used Clark Heinrich, instead, as an example of an
entheogen scholar whose writings inadvertantly equate religion with one plant,
Amanita.

James Arthur is hard to criticize — the main flaw of his work is the
unprofessional, unscholarly presentation of his research in Mushrooms and
Mankind; he’d be more successful among the scholarly community with more
careful editing and scholarly citations.

I have been very careful to qualify my critique of Ken Wilber — unlike my
first attempts at doing so, where I accused him of being oblivious to
entheogens. Now, my criticism of him on that point is far more qualified: he
has a bad *treatment* of entheogens, failing to see their ubiquity such as in
Hellenistic mystery-religion, and failing to see that they are not a
simulation of mystic technique, but are the main, original, and ever-popular
mystic technique. His statements about entheogens are largely right — he
just doesn’t make entheogens central as he should.

I have to improve my criticism of entheogen scholars the same way. There is
something seriously wrong with the existing entheogen scholarship — but what
exactly is it? I refuse to be morose or repentant about the flaws in my
critical efforts so far. Flaws are the price of making headway. I will
correct my criticisms but won’t apologize; I had to venture some flames to
push the envelope and see aspects of today’s researchers immortally survives
and which parts are perishable.

One important outcome of my extremist, experimental condemnation of today’s
paradigm for doing entheogen scholarship is the need to assess the degree to
which this scholarship has achieved influencing general knowledge.

James Arthur has been highly influential in certain respects, spreading the
gospel of entheogen-pharmacopia religion far and wide on the Art Bell show
with millions of listeners — other scholars ought to be jealous of Arthur’s
popular success. He has also been an extremely popular presenter at
conferences. His site gets many hits, and his book is highly popular at
Amazon, higher than 50,000 for a long time.

In the popular High Times and Cannabis Culture magazines, Chris Bennett has
spread the gospel of entheogen-religion, most visibly of “Jesus’ use of
marijuana”, as The Door magazine reports it.

Ruck’s work, altogether, has been influential, though it’s hard for me to
gauge. Heinrich’s work is much better positioned now that his second edition
of Strange Fruit has been published inexpensively in the U.S., rather than the
extremely fine and fairly expensive U.K. original edition.

I don’t really have a “work” to gauge the impact of, but my work at Amazon, in
Christianity and entheogens and no-free-will has probably been about as
influential as my personal communications with entheogen scholars.

Robert Graves deserves much more credit than he’s been given, for the
entheogen theory of religion: in fact, the Wasson Hypothesis really must be
renamed the Graves/Wasson Hypothesis. I wish to read Graves, such as White
Goddess, and King Jesus. Graves’ innovative ideas were influential, but he’s
given little credit for the entheogen theory of religion.

Were Allegro’s ideas about mythic Christianity and Amanita influential? In
some twisted and complicated ways, yes. Entheos magazine ought to have an
article about that question. I evade the responsibility for writing it, but
am a candidate for doing so, even though I’d ignore the sex aspects.
Group: egodeath Message: 1522 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 30/03/2003
Subject: Amazon review: Bennett’s “Drugs in the Bible”
A review I posted today. There are presently no reviews. This book is in my
Amazon list, “Entheogen theory of religion”.


Sex, Drugs, Violence and the Bible
Chris Bennett, Neil McQueen
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1550567985
Search/purchase:
http://www.google.com/search?q=sex+drugs+violence+bible+bennett


5 stars

Valuable cannabis-focused entheogen theory
—–

Anyone interested in the entheogen theory of religion should get and read this
book. It is largely devoted to ferreting out the many entheogen references and
allusions in the Bible. It covers most books of the Bible in order.

High-quality scholarship. Aside from some distracting typos, it is highly
readable and reveals how interesting and complex many of the Bible stories
are. As is standard, it assumes the literal existence of Bible characters —
an assumption which entheogen scholars are increasingly calling into question.

I’m grateful for this book spurring me on to take on studying all the books in
the Bible. Highly recommended for entheogen and religion collections —
essential, in fact, especially in light of how few books there are about
entheogens in Christianity.
Group: egodeath Message: 1523 From: Michael Hoffman Date: 30/03/2003
Subject: Assessing the influence of Bennett’s work
Chris Bennett strives to offer more credible evidence of the use of a variety
of entheogens in early Christianity than any researcher to date.


Per Ott, I criticized the word “artificial” in Siegel’s book:

Intoxication: Life in Pursuit of Artificial Paradise
Ronald Siegel
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0671691929


Bennett’s “Sex…” book is about the Bible, so is focused on the Jews and
Christians:

Sex, Drugs, Violence and the Bible
Chris Bennett, Neil McQueen
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1550567985


For material on a variety of religions and cultures, see:

Green Gold, the Tree of Life: Marijuana in Magic & Religion
Chris Bennett
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0962987220


I am considering posting the Door review, which I consider a meaningful
weathervane of status-quo thinking and attitudes toward the entheogen theory:
many people assume that the theory need not be seriously refuted, because they
think it&#39#39;s unthinkable.

I’m finding so many entheogen-diminishing passages in books on mystic
experiencing and early Christianity and Buddhism, so many that I’m highly
aggravated. This is somewhat of a sign of the entheogens making significant
inroads. My driving goal in assessing the situation is to prevent religion
writers from so easily getting away with diminishing the spiritual use of
entheogens and the entheogen theory of religion.

Almost every run-of-the-mill scholar of early Christianity now is obliged to
do the same aggravating dance of “some theorists even put forth such absurd
ideas as Jesus leading a mushroom cult”. Those mainstream, official scholars
then feel that they have safely defused and swept aside the threat of the
entheogen theory, which threatens their paycheck and livelihood as explainers
of “what the historical Jesus and his beliefs were really like”.


One of Bennett’s High Times articles mentioned mushrooms, mandrake and other
entheogens.

One of the High Times articles:
http://www.hightimes.com/htsite/news/content.php?page=news_03021011&tpage=2&cm
nt=1

Regarding the question of to what extent the entheogen theory is being
communicated effectively, Bennett’s High Times article was coverd in every
major newspaper in the world, including the UK Gaurdian, Sunday Times, BBC,
India Times, Indai Express, Washington Post, and others.

Bennett’s article was likely the most widely covered entheogen story in the
last few years.
http://www.google.com/search?q=cannabis+jesus+bennett
Group: egodeath Message: 1524 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 30/03/2003
Subject: Re: Has entheogen theory been effectively communicated?
There is
something seriously wrong with the existing entheogen scholarship —
but what
exactly is it? >>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I eventually came to the conclusion in my own pondering of this
question that the single fact, that it because it is, except in rare
cases, illegal to do either religious or scientific research on
entheogens. This has colored the way people including “scholars,”
have discussed entheogens and the single most important factor that
has dragged down the development of understanding about these things,

I do believe that at the level of Law, it CAN be proven, within the
lagal context, that entheogens are in fact the origin of religion,
or at least a religious thing.

We are talking about baby steps. You can’t expect a general
scholarly understanding and concurance to occur when reseach itself,
is legally prohibited.

Thus the first step is widening the legality of entheogens for
relgious use and scientific research. A comprehensive theory that
explores are the nooks andd crannies, comes later.

Even if the only definate legal proof of shamanisitic and hindu use
in religious practice, then that is a first step. Then prove the
the Judeo/Christian Islamic and Buddhist links.

“Freedom of Religion,” in the United States, and other countries,
is a legal fact on paper. Now the objective should be to change the
laws. If this means to first legalize shamanistic religious use,
then that is a first step. Effort in this direction, would mean
preparing the legal argument, not the all knowing, all
comprehensive “General Theory of Entheogenic consciousness,” that
all scientists and religionists must agree to at some latter time.

dc
Group: egodeath Message: 1525 From: rialcnis2000 Date: 30/03/2003
Subject: Re: Has entheogen theory been effectively communicated?
It is very easy to demonstrate that Entheogen has been fundamental
to Shamnaistic religon and vedic Hinduism. The documentary proof in
these two areas could never be controverted in any court of law.

This is step one.

Once all the explorers and scientists involved in entheogen research
convert to a religion where entheogines can be studied legally then
great things can come. A new breed of “Medicine Man” or the
Ayuervedic Physicians of the future, would need to unite in the
legal arena, using all the proof at their disposal. If this cannot
be done, then nothing can be done and entheogenic theorizing could
never become mainstream. There are simply laws that need to be
changed based on religious rights.

dc
Group: egodeath Message: 1526 From: spamsquatch69 Date: 31/03/2003
Subject: The meaning of the S.A.T.O. Abbreviation in the song by Ozzy
The sight mentions this if you go to Ozzy’s songs. S.A.T.O does not
mean sailing the acid ocean trip or anything like that. It’s the
initials to his wife, Sharon’s, full name.
Group: egodeath Message: 1527 From: egodeath@yahoogroups.com Date: 31/03/2003
Subject: File – EgodeathPostingRules.txt
This text file is automatically posted to the discussion group every two
weeks, in order to provide guidelines for writers, to keep the postings
on-topic and help writers know what subjects are considered most desirable
by this audience.

It is possible to write on most any topic and have it be relevant for this
Egodeath discussion group if you show how the posting is related to the
in-scope topics for this discussion group. This group is not formally
moderated, but it is consistently focused on the defined topics, including
peripheral topics if the writer explicitly connects them to the core topics.

Vague, unclear, hazy postings are off-topic and out of scope and are subject to moderation. Contributors must make the effort for rational, clear, explicit, intellectual, articulate, and comprehensible presentation of particular points.

— Michael Hoffman

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath — describes
in-scope discussion topics, as follows.

This discussion group covers the cybernetic theory of ego death and
ego transcendence, including:

o Nonreductionistic block-universe determinism/Fatedness, the closed
and preexisting future, tenseless time, free will as illusory, the
holographic universe, and predestination and Reformed theology.

o Cognitive science, mental construct processing, mental models,
ontological idealism, contemporary metaphysics of the continuant
self, cybernetic self-control, personal control agency, moral agency,
and self-government.

o Zen satori, short-path enlightenment, and Alan Watts;
transpersonal psychology, Ken Wilber, and integral theory.

o Entheogens and psychedelic drugs, the Eleusinian mysteries and
cracking the allegorical code of the mystery religions, mythic
metaphor and allegorical encoding, the mystic altered state, mystic
and religious experiencing, visionary states, religious rapture, and
Acid Rock mysticism.

o Loss of control, self-control seizure, cognitive instability, and
psychosis and schizophrenia.
Group: egodeath Message: 1528 From: egodeath@yahoogroups.com Date: 31/03/2003
Subject: New file uploaded to egodeath
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Group: egodeath Message: 1529 From: egodeath@yahoogroups.com Date: 31/03/2003
Subject: New file uploaded to egodeath
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